The light within the abyss
by GreenleafEverlove
Summary: AU. Letting go of the past is always the hardest part. Those who are involved in Bio-terrorism, the life of it infected their hearts and most of their daily lives. It's difficult to want to adjust oneself. Onboard the Queen Zenobia, it could have the right answer for those who seek it. Leon, Jill. Resident evil Revelations.
1. Chapter 1 Prologue

**Chapter 1." Prologue."**

 **2013.**

Chris Redfield lay back on his comfy chair with his eyes closed, allowing his tired body and heart to relax a little and reminisce on all of the memories—the good, the bad... and the terrible—all that he had seen with his various partners in the past seven years.

It had been seven moons since he'd returned home from China, after narrowly saving the city from yet further destruction and chaos. The mission was a technical success despite the losses, a success due to how Chris worked to stop the incident from harming the world even more... that was the opinion of the politicians and military commanders at least, he had his doubts, major doubts It was a full moon that night in China.

"Chris, you feeling alright?" a young woman in a red leather jacket asked. Her hair was a deep red. Her shoulder length hair was tied back into a small ponytail. This woman was named Claire, Chris' younger sister.

Chris took another deep breath and opened his eyes. "I'm fine Claire bear, don't worry about me." Claire Redfield, had been living with him for almost a year now. Since the Incident, she refused to leave his side.

Claire took it upon herself to be by her brother's side no matter what.

It had started off with visiting Chris on the weekends. Claire would come over to make the smallest of conversations be enough for her to be with him. As time continued, Claire eventually moved in with him. It became her mission to help him. With honest talks with her employers and the willingness to seek out another method to help TerraSave. Claire would use her computer to help in what ways she could and still be with Chris. It's been several weeks since she started working at home…

Claire took his hand and walked with him to the front door. "Parker's coming; he needs to talk to you again about your time in China, they feel they could have a lead on who was backing Simmons, also-" Claire lead Chris to the staircase.

"I told you Claire, I don't want to talk about this anymore," Chris pulled his hand away, "I want to stay away from that life... for good."

Claire shook her head in disbelief. "You can't fool me. I know you." she whispered. "This guilt you're forcing upon yourself is tearing you apart." Claire looked to the ground then remembered how far he can go with his guilt.

Chris took a deep breath and climbed two steps to stand at eye level with her. "I appreciate what you're trying to do…"

When they reached the last step of the stairs leading to the bedrooms, the strength of his legs gave out. Everything there hurts him, the smell of her perfume that still lingered. He stopped for a moment as visions of the past played in his mind. "Claire please, I...can't do this, " he said and walked down the stairs, several sounds that echoed in her mind. It pinched her heart after the years she spent with her brother, she could tell when he was crying.

Claire continued without him and entered the first bedroom in the hall.

The chair was still the same, it hadn't been touched for years, and the balcony is still opened. The large bed was filled with the leaf of autumn, like the rest of the room. How did life get to be dragged into hell? She wondered. They don't deserve this.

She took a seat on the dusty chair and heaved a long sigh. It all started back in the year 2006. It was back when he could act normal. The first few months were good, then he was sent away with Jessica Sherawat. Claire leaned forward and rubbed her forehead. Why did it have to go down that way?...

 **4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42**

 **April-8-2006.**

Leon wandered carefully. He was alone in a deathly silent street, surrounded by a fog. Nothing stirred. His mind was shrouded for a moment. Fear and doubt gripped him, as he could hear a familiar moaning sound in the distance.

There before, the large sign, R.P.D. Raccoon police.

"No," he whispered under bated breath. "No way."

He looked down at himself, the dark blue fabric from his past. The same fabric that saw him through a night he tried so hard to forget. It was his police uniform. With the bolded white text on his chest. Proclaiming what he served. Raccoon City Police. He glanced at his hands to see black gloves and his gun.

A Heckler & Koch VP70 handgun. The only weapon the department had the funding for.

A loud crash sound echoed behind him, he turned around then aimed his gun forward. Fingers wrapped around his neck and he couldn't feel the ground beneath him any longer.

"You carry the same blood as us, it seems." The figure in view had a blue overcoat. The face was hidden by the hood. "Nevertheless, you're an outsider." The figure released him from its grip. "Just remember, you belong to us, and if you become unpleasant to our eyes, you will face severe consequence."

He could see his hands changing, bones shifting... tendrils moving under the skin and mutating.

With a gasp his eyes were open, he pulled himself to a sitting position and heaved for air. There were rivulets of sweat dripping down from his forehead and cheeks. He looked around and was relieved to see the familiar surroundings of his apartment. _Safe and sound... relatively speaking._ He swallowed a lump in his throat, and ground his teeth for a moment before finally gathering up the courage to look down at his hands and make sure they were still his, still... human.

The clock in the wall said: 2:30 A.M.

 _Damn those dreams_ , he thought, at last he found the courage to step out of the bed, and leave the bedroom.

He couldn't remember the last time he ever slept peacefully.

Adrenaline keeps the mind alert and the body busy. Ensured the fire still ran hot in his veins as the blood burned, and it kept him moving during work. It didn't matter that his head ached and his muscles felt sore.

He had a job to do.

He just wished he could forget about the world and just allow himself sleep for a few peaceful minutes, but sleep would bring the dreams, and those images that couldn't be erased, no matter how much he wanted to. So in turn, he barely sleeps, for just three or four tiresome hours. He has seen too many people die and in too short a time - his friend Mike among them.

Ace pilot. Loved to bring donuts on Fridays and taught his niece how to fly a helicopter before she could drive a car…

Mike just wanted to help him, if he hadn't go to Spain and call for help, Mike will still be alive today. Just because he couldn't handle things on his own, the beloved uncle of a sweet little girl was dead... it just wasn't enough of a reason to let Mike be taken away from Lorena by the cosmos.

 _I bet he would really love to share that drink I owe him… A debt that can never be repaid._

The memories of Raccoon city; he had seen too many innocent, good people have had their lives cut short because of the Umbrella Corporation, he had no other choice but to shoot his fellow officers, and chief Irons had died horribly.

And he couldn't help but wonder how Ashley's been doing, how does she cope with the memories of her kidnaping to Spain? It's been two years since he saved her.

Saddler and his cult is over and destroyed, the ashes scattered to the wind but the war has only just begun. He lives by the comfort of medications, to stay a normal-sane human begin.

Ever since his return, he dreams of Mendez telling him how he belongs to them. The figure from his dream. He knew the face of Mendez too well, but he couldn't understand why it was hard to see. He swallowed several red and white pills without the need of water.

His fingers are permanently bent, curved to grip his gun and his knife, and they fit so perfectly in his killing hands, the slightest sound in his house will send him over the edge, no one understands what it is he's going through.

In his living room, two of his lamps are broken, his glass coffee-table is thrown in the corner of the room after he broke it too.

It happened on his vacation day,

He was sitting in front of the T.V. watching the news, a loud crash interrupted his peaceful time.

Without the need to think, he drew his gun.

Before him stood a tall dark figure, it was Mendez. His face under that damned raincoat. "Get the hell out of my house!" he yelled and his voice cracking, he fired three bullets, only to hit his lamps.

The room was empty.

He heard his neighbor kicking the door, "Leon! Are you alright?" she shouted...

Many people thought that he was perfectly strong knight in shining Armour, the one who couldn't never let anything get to him, but he never was and never would be. The police are the knights of the world today but that was too short lived to even have the time to adjust.

He knew that the memories of the creatures take too long to leave him, if he could ever forget. This façade of the man who seems unfazed by the horror. The horror seeing people torn apart and the madmen who caused it. This is all just a mask. One that doesn't help him anymore.

The fear of becoming a puppet never left his mind, someday on some job or another he could be the one who will achieve what Saddler couldn't by kidnapping Ashley. He walked out of his room to see the vacant hollow existence that served him. The kitchen pristine of the newest stuff.

He drank some cold water from the sink and he made his way to the living room.

The machine near T.V lit up as a remote was casted aside. _I wonder who this could be?_ He thought but deep down he knew the answer.

' **You have one message.'** The screen expressed in large black letters. After five seconds the message played. "Hey Leon, I'm sorry to send this to you at this hour, but I have no choice." It was a dark toned woman in a business suit. "There is a new mission for you concerning the B.S.A.A. can you please come to the office at 7:15 o'clock. A woman named Jill Valentine will be waiting for you in the board room."

Leon heaved a long sigh, and laid down in the couch. "Great, another one to worry about." he whispered.

...

The morning finally came, in Tall Oaks city.

The special agent, Leon Kennedy walked out of his room fully dressed and ready to leave. With a dark blue button up long sleeve shirt, with a red undershirt, and his beloved brown leather jacket. The excessive amount of clothing helped him remember what Umbrella stole from him.

The life of a police officer.

The amount of time it took was the same as it was to put on the uniform.

His neighbor, Kayla Williams, a tall blonde-haired young woman, with lovely creamy white skin. She was already there, it is something they do sometime. Leon was comfortable enough to have breakfast with her.

Though he never wanted this, but Kayla had said, "I know what you're going through, and I'm not going to stop coming here, until you smile at last and be a little happy."

"Good morning sunshine," she said happily as he came down the stairs. "I thought today was the start of your vacation?"

Leon pulled his lips back as he thought his next words carefully. "No, sadly. I got a message last night from my job, I'm told that of a new mission I need to do, something of a work with the B.S.A.A."

Leon came closer and sat on the couch in front of his friend. "You've got my undivided attention. What kind of a mission is this?" Kayla asked.

"I honestly do not know," Leon said. "Do you remember Jill Valentine?"

Kayla had to think about it for a moment. "Yes, I remember her, one of the co-founders of the B.S.A.A, or as they call her: The brave survivor." Kayla looked at Leon. "What about her?" she asked.

"As you know, President Adam is watching over the work of the B.S.A.A., along with another old S.T.A.R.S member Chris Redfield. They want me to work with Jill Valentine and Investigate a strange man who sent a threat about a new virus. This is all I know so far, I hope there is no virus involved."

"Interesting," Kayla said.

The sound of his PDA interrupted them. He took out of his pocket and pressed the answer button.

A brunette woman appeared in the small screen. "Hello Mister Kennedy?"

"Yeah." Leon glanced at Kayla. "That's me."

"I'm Jill Valentine talking to you from your building, you need to come right now."

"I will be there, give me five minutes Miss Valentine," he said and put the PDA back in his pocket. "Sorry Kayla," he said as he stood up and walked toward the front door.

Leon left his plate at the table since he didn't have time. He nodded to her before he grabbed his coat and walked out. 'Not even a goodbye' or 'until next time.'

"Good luck." Kayla stared at the door.

 **Thank you for reading, reviews are always appreciated.**

 **Special thanks to The95will my beta reader.**


	2. Chapter 2 So it Begins

**Special thanks to The95will, my beta reader.**

 **Chapter 2. "So it Begins."**

A set of eyes opened to see a dull white ceiling. The same place that felt as alien like a hotel. There wasn't any kind of longing to be here. Just a place hold belongings. The eye closed as the owner leaned forward. The owner was a woman. The woman had shoulder length brunette hair, fair pale skin, and ocean blue eyes.

Her wrinkled shirt crumbled down as she straightened it. It hide her slim built frame. Her face had a round button nose along with a pursed lips.

None of her features detracted from her look however. She indeed was a very attractive woman.

Her name is Jill Valentine. A thirty year old woman that works for the American government.

She looked at the closest window. The bright yellow beam engulfed her room to reflect from the white paint. Just a way to wake up from the light. Alarm clocks annoyed her… so it was a rather decent compromise.

She leaned up while she used her right arm for support and looked at her door. She stared at it as she could clearly hear the echo of her thoughts. Memory was rather cruel when the pleasant ones don't offer the chance to be relived. Jill's lips winced at a fond memory she used to live by. A friend that would help her with any problem. His name was Chris Redfield and this morning, he didn't barge through her door to wake her up. Like in her memories. Instead, she heard a sound coming from down stairs,"Welcome..." The two of them lived together.

It started after she escaped Raccoon City with Carlos and he returned with Claire. She saw the worst of what life could offer but she faced the dangers and prevailed by escaping that hell. From then on Chris will usually invite Jill for some peaceful time along with Barry Burton and Rebecca Chambers. Old partners back when Jill was part of S.T.A.R.S. The Special Tactics and Rescue Squad. The old police unit that served with distinction. The happiest time of her life. The four friends will have a dinner together, joke around and drink a little. They will do this three times in a month.

When Raccoon City was consumed in nuclear fire. The same happened to the S.T.A.R.S unit as it dissipated. Until one day, plans were made to create the national initiative against the issue of Bio Terrorism. An advocate named Clive O'Brian came to visit her and asked for her to help him and make the group grow.

She knew the dangers what Biological Weapons could do. It didn't take long for him to convince Jill to join his efforts. It is the same day Chris asked her to move in with him, it is also the day she told him, "Chris, please I do not want you to take this the wrong way, you are my best friend and I love you. It is just I hope after I move in with you this will not change, I do not want to damage what we have." His lips curled into a warm smile, "Don't worry, darling." Chris wanted her; there is no doubt in her mind, she noticed by the way he looked and spoke to her. It was so hard to speak those words to him, but she'd have to, or else he will get messy signals from her.

At last she stepped out of the bed, dread infected her mind as she looked at the clock at the night stand, 6:30 A.M. "Damn it!" she thought out loud.

Jill scrambled from her bed.'I'm going to be late!' In a hurry she prepared her uniform, a light blue long sleeves shirt, and a grey pants. She ran out of the bedroom, thinking of many different scenarios of how she will break Chris' teeth, for doing this to her.

Chris just left the bathroom, "Good morning." he said, but she pushed him out of the way and entered. "Sorry no time," she yelled and closed the door.

Chris chuckled in amusement, "I hope you take this as a lesson."

"Asshole!" Jill retorted as water started to run. He covered his mouth, trying so hard to contain the urge to laugh. "Chris," a deep husky voice called out to him, he rotated his head and saw Parker Luciani a member of the B.S.A.A. and a good friend to the both of them. "Did she wake up?" Parker asked.

"Yeah. She'll be ready soon."

It took her fifteen minutes to finish showering and ran to her room, and Parker's patient was running out down stairs. Parker was looking at his watch and sigh in an obvious annoyance. "Come on Jill, we are running out of time." he shouted. "We have a meeting with Ingrid Hunnigan. Also we have a meeting with a guy named Leon."

"Leon?" Chris came into the living room puzzled. "I thought this was just a meeting with Hunnigan to have a little discussion with her?"

"No," Parker replied, "we will be having a helping hand from the special agent, the president wants him to help us. What I got from his records, he's pretty experienced."

His torment came to an end at last, Jill came down the stairs fully dressed and ready to leave, "Come on Parker move it," she said as she made her way to the front door.

...

7:22 A.M.

Leon took off his helmet and sigh as the noise of the motorcycle stopped, the door of his building is open; two unfamiliar cars were near.

"I'm late." he whispered.

Leon made his way inside, and he was met by two agents. "Hey Kennedy, they are waiting for you." one of them said. "Alright, thanks." he replied.

He walked through the cold clean corridor of the government building and he headed for the board room, past of few offices and around a corner in the hall. He heard Hunnigan's calm voice, apparently she never change no matter how scary the coming events will be like.

Ever since she helped him in Spain, he wondered how she could always be so calm all the time, sure she wasn't like him: a survivor of an unbelievable horror. Hunnigan was very mentally capable and it reflected in her work.

"... said he'd send some of the information first thing tomorrow morning. Another of the agents said he called himself and his men; Veltro, he sent another message to O'Brien. He'll be waiting to hear from us when we've finished to put a plan to stop him of course...Chris Redfield will be leaving soon, for an investigation with Jessica Sherawat. She's a good soldier and you two will report to O'Brian. We will be waiting for them, they'll give us everything they find in their trip." She broke off as Leon walked into the room, all eyes turned to him.

He recognized Jill Valentine who sat beside Hunnigan, There were two men sitting on the chairs in the right side of the large table.

Hunnigan smiled at him, "Agent Kennedy, at last." both men got up, stepping forward to be introduced.

"Hello mister Kennedy, my name is Parker Luciani. I'm Miss Valentine's partner for the past three months, nice record you got..."

Leon lips moved into something close to a smile that suited his rough features perfectly as he shook his hand, "Nice to meet you." he said.

The other man; his gaze was friendly and direct. "... My name is Keith Lumley, I will be helping you behind the scenes; I can track you down, and point out any issues in the place and give you directions." Leon noticed Keith offered his hand. He shook it and nodded to Keith.

He made his way to the front where Jill waited for him, "Pleased to make your acquaintance," she said gently.

"Pleasures all mine," he replied and took a seat next to her. "Well, it took you more than five minutes to be here." she said with a smile.

"Sorry, got caught up by traffic." he said. "What did I miss?" in the corner of his eyes he could see Jill watching him closely, he turned to look at her. "What?"

She broke eye contact."Nothing... I just," she whispered, he noticed that her eyes flickered, "remembered something."

"I will show you Leon, right now. Focus in the screen please." Hunnigan said, getting their attention. She took a control from the table and pressed play.

After a seconds of darkness, a masked man appeared, speaking in a deep voice. "But if my words be seed that may bear fruit of infamy, to the traitor whom I gnaw. Speaking and weeping shalt thou see together." The voice was obviously muffled by a gasmask. The world is in our hand." he said as he took something and showed it to the camera, it is look like a needle with a dark-pink liquid inside. "This is the T Abyss virus, and we are equipped to infect one fifth of the earth's waters." He put the needle on an aquarium, in mere seconds the water turned red, and before their eyes the fish changed into something like a large piranha, but deadlier.

Hunnigan at last turned it off, "See? That was the end of his message, will almost."

"What in the world was that? the Infection is really fast!" Leon said half surprised.

Parker showed him all what they wrote; all the Information they learned so far, in a file. A history of Terragrigia city, before the tragedy. A rumors of Veltro and their possible Resurrection.

"So does this have to do with the Terragrigia tragedy? I don't understand! Does he or they wants a certain information about the city to be reveled?" he said, more puzzled than before.

Jill heaved a long shudder, "I wish that was the case," she said and in her voice an unmistakable tremor.

"Alright Jill, we're leaving, O'Brian needs us." Keith said. "Nice to see you Mister Kennedy, goodbye."

Leon watched them leave, as a certain memories returned to him, he could feel tears at the corner of his eyes, his mask is failing once again.

"Excuse me Mister Kennedy?" Jill asked, Leon hurriedly pushed the memories away,

"Call me Leon," he answered without looking at her eyes. "What?"

"Do you have a background of Veltro? I brought a file filled of Information for you to read before we leave." she stated.

Once again he looked at her ocean eyes."Alright, I'll make sure to check it. Thank you." barely cracked half a smile.

Jill turned her gaze back to her file in the table, The two of them did not even realize Hunnigan has left with the others.

Jill took out a photo from the file and showed it to him, it appeared like: a photo of an old factory building. "We need to investigate this place first. Veltro might use this factory many times. We're told of a suspicious movement in there, and strange figures leaving in the middle of the night."

"Okay..." he said with an obvious confusion in his voice.

"We had leads, trust me on this okay." She replied,"We're not just going in there because of rumors."

"TerraSave, Claire's group are already working around that area; to help the residents. This area is actually close to the ruins of Terragrigia do you see now, we're the B.S.A.A. we do not play around."

Leon's heart skipped a beat at the mention of Claire, the two of them did not meet since they escaped Raccoon city, and she chose to leave him and sherry to look for Chris. Though he spoke with her a few times later, and he gave her location to Chris in the Ashford Island. "Claire?" he whispered. "Claire Redfield?" "You know her?" Jill asked. "Yes, she is a good friend of mine."

 **Thank you for reading...Reviews are always appreciated.**


	3. Chapter 3 To the building

**Special thanks to The95will, my beta reader.**

 **Chapter 3. To the building.**

Leon strapped himself into the helicopter seat and looked out the window then drifted into thought. He was ready for another mission, again. His Wing Shooters and combat knife were secured in his straps. The helicopter wings tuned out most forms of sound.

The sound of a helicopter's wings followed him on most assignments. Always meant that he could survive the worst and people would still die.

This must be his fate, he will keep doing this until his heart stops prematurely. Most likely by the cause of some B.O.W.

Death, that word played in his mind for a moment, somehow it gave him a sense of comfort, to sleep in a coffin peacefully forever. Then he remembered how B.O.W.s rob the deceased of their slumber. To rot in a box until the body decomposes for the word. It was rather discomforting that something terrible could still happen after death. He was surprised that such a thought even crossed his mind. …

'I think I hit rock bottom.'

Jill came in and closed the door behind her, "You brought everything?" she asked and took a seat next to him. The moment she sat down, shortly afterward, the blades of the helicopter started to rotate. The pilot checked their equipment for the flight.

"Yeah," Leon replied in an icy voice. Once again she watched his eyes for a second waiting for any sign, but nothing.

Jill looked away with as she lifted her left eyebrow. Something about Leon just didn't seem right.

The sound of the rotor blade grew louder, higher and with a stuttering jerk. The helicopter started it's ascend into the sky.

The view soon changed and it was something that Leon somewhat enjoyed. From the mission, he took back in South America when Krauser helped him stop a madman from ruining his daughter's life. Just something from this empty job that made it somewhat worth it.

Manuela is currently studying to be a professional biologist and geneticist.

Leon clutched to his right arm as he looked out of the window. The sounds of the how helicopters crash and the people who are consumed by the flames echoed in his ears. Leon continued to stare out the window as he had his left hand hold onto is right wrist.

Jill couldn't help it but notice how shallow Leon's eyes looked. How he barely show the slightest emotion while back when he introduced himself.

She saw the signs and knew it wasn't normal, he is suffering; she can read him.

This is what she saw in him when they first met; he reminded her of that time when she was lost in a hollow existence. She couldn't feel happy, she couldn't see the beauty of what's around her, and she felt dead inside.

All of this happened, after her last escape of Raccoon city, she rented a room in an average hotel in New York. Even in a place of where she's supposed to feel safe. She couldn't, the memory of nemesis alone is enough to do that. In her home, most of those days she would be curled in the bed as if she is freezing, knees tucked up against her chest while her body shivered. Her brown hair spilled over the pillow, and the color emphasized the paleness of her skin, she will cry herself to sleep. From all the she's been through.

This wasn't the ways she wanted to express herself in the work place, or even normal life.

Like how it happened on most days. Jill would dress in the cleanest of clothes at the office. The strong unfazed woman of how she wanted her coworkers to see her. That was her routine. To be the heroine of the B.S.A.A.

It was rather difficult for Jill to just move on from what Umbrella did to Raccoon City. The people who died and how she wasn't unscathed either. The thought of the T -Virus in her blood stream. It just felt like a curse to her life rather because of how it helps her body for her job.

Jill felt responsible for this supposed gift to come at the cost of a city's worth of people's lives. The memories of the T -virus in her body haunted her for so long until the saving grace came to her at last, when Chris asked her to move in with him.

Since that happened. Slowly but surely, Jill felt at ease with herself. Just from his personality it brought the best out of her. Slowly, he made her smile and see that the world isn't always a dark meaningless place, and she is forever thankful to him.

Leon is obviously lost. 'Didn't anyone ever notice this?' Jill pondered.'doesn't he have anybody?'

"It seems that we're almost there," the pilot pointed out. "I can see TerraSave members." Leon noticed the change of scenery then remembered that Hunnigan assured him that the place is fully secured and is currently locked down. A few moments later the helicopter touched down though the pilot was a little rushed and the sound of the skids hitting the ground was loud. "Easy Thomas, you almost gave me a heart- attack!" Jill yelled at the pilot. She took hold of her headphones as she frowned in his direction. Thomas laughed and looked back at her face. "Sorry, I just love to do this sometimes to the good agents."

Leon left his seat, and with a sigh he opened the door, "Come on, we have to move." Jill watched him, for mere seconds before Thomas broke the silence, "What's the problem with Iceman over there?" he asked.

"I do not know," she answered.

...

Chaos was all over the place, he was surrounded by TerraSave tents, men dressed in white were moving from one tent to the other. Cries can be heard from a poor sick people. Several members in dark blue jackets wondered about. The constant noise droned on and on.

"Yes do it already, Neil is waiting for your report." he heard a familiar voice. In the distance, he could see a glistening red ponytail.

A Redhead young woman stood with her fellow workers, she wore a brown jacket and a gray shirt with dark blue jeans. She's been doing this job for years now, and she never been happier; to see the poor resident's one by one leave the tents and their eyes are shining with hope. She was far away from all of the unforgettable horrors as it became her job to clean up the mess and take a good care of the Injured people from the Bio Terrorism.

All thanks to Steve Burnside, the boy she met in Rockfort Island, and the pain she felt when she couldn't save him from the crazy Ashford twins.

She wanted to be a rescuer, she wanted to save all the poor souls who are damaged from the Bioterrorism.

Her name is Claire Redfield, a twenty six years old woman who loves her job.

"Claire!" she heard someone call her.

"Excuse me," she said and gave the clipboard to her partner, a man named Pedro Fernandez. "Where are you going Redfield?" he asked.

He heard her gasp like she just saw something startled her. "What?"

"No way… Leon!" she whispered.

There in the front he recognized the B.S.A.A. uniform in what she assumed to be Jill, for she heard from Chris she would be coming today.

Before he could say anything to Claire, she ran toward him like she has no control over her actions.

She jumped into his arms. "It's soo good to see you," she whispered in his ears. "For a long time I wanted to visit you and see how you are holding up." Claire then noticed several TerraSave members stare at her. "I'm sorry, lost control there for a moment." She drew back to look at him, his face is unreadable and cold, unlike the Leon she remember.

"It's alright." he spoke at last, his voice wavering slightly, "How're you doing...in your job?"

"I'm doing good thank you," she said happily, "sometimes work keeps me up until two in the morning." she expected him to say something back and laugh with her, but that was it, nothing. Deep she wanted to scream.' who're you and what did you do to Leon'

Claire turned her focus to Jill who is standing next to him, "Jill, I did know you were coming out here. What an honor." she said with a hint of a teasing in her voice, "How are you today?"

"Don't even start with me, someday I think I'll send your dear brother to the hospital." Jill said with a chuckle.

"Sorry," she said hiding her laugh.

"Anyway, we have a work to do, call me later when you're free okay?" she said and hold into her Beretta Px4 Storm. "Bye." She nodded at her and left. Leon looked at her for a moment, his lips moved again to form something close to a smile, "Goodbye," he said and left her side without even waiting for a reply. Claire stared back at the spot, where he was standing.

So many questions are playing in her mind, "Is he still mad at me, for leaving that day?"

...

"First day on the job, I want a twenty thousand dollars for a paycheck," Leon said, to Claire they were in a nice place for vacation, outside the city. He couldn't help the grin that broke across his face, a tired grin, still he was happy. It was a well earned fun conversation to have with an old friend, after all the madness they endured days ago. That happiness turned into anger when she told him about her plan to find Chris right away. She tried to make him understand. "Just go, leave us alone," and he refused even to glance at her one last time.

...

"Redfield, no time for rest." Pedro shouted, making her return back to reality. "Coming."

* * *

Neither of them spoke again as they walk to the building, hurt by the reminder of the tragedy that had occurred here in this area. It was impossible to stop thinking about what would happen if they didn't stop Veltro, every second they waste; it could lead to another viral outbreak, another horror like Terragrigia City. They reached the unknown structure, slowing down, they studied the layout.

The building looks bigger than they thought it would be.

There were few signs of a gun shots in the ground in front of the building,

"Leon, Jill, come in." Their radios buzzed out.

Leon brought his index finger to his ear, "Hunnigan, we are almost inside." Jill reported in.

"You need to be careful, Keith discovered suspicious movement inside; he is still isn't sure if there are any humans trapped inside or if the place has a B.O.W."

"Understood," Leon answered and took out one of his Wing Shooters.

Slowly, he opened the heavy door and sound of the crack of the door, seemingly louder in the deathly quiet place.

They could see dirt and dust everywhere, rust has eaten the place. No sound can be heard but the echo of their shoes, no machines were in sight, nothing. As though the place is abandoned for years, "Are you sure this is a suspicious place?" Leon asked.

"Didn't you hear what Hunnigan said?" she replied in an obvious annoyance."Come on."

There were a wide steel steps leading up to a door. Leon kept watching their back for any surprised attack. As Jill walked up the steps, she tried to kick the door open, but it won't budge. "It is locked," she said. "Give me a few seconds." Jill started to tug at the door.

It took him by surprise, a sudden pain started to spread in his right arm, it was like it's on fire, and his breathing quickened.

In a desperate attempt to stay silent he sat on the stairs, he tried to touch his arm, but it will hurt too much he had to stop.

'No, this is not the time to worry… please.' he thought.' I need to focus.'

The sound of the lock told him Jill succeeded. "The door is open."

"Good job," he whispered as he stood up and walked in front of her. "Wait!" she called him, "you are not going anywhere,"

Leon stopped at the threshold, without looking back at her he spoke, "What's the problem?" he asked.

"You look unusually pale, are you alright?" she asked.

"Look, I'm fine okay, I can hold my own!" he shouted with so much buried rage in his voice.

It took him a moment to realize what he just did, "I'm sorry," he said.

He entered the room, fully aware of her eyes following him. He was sure Jill wanted to say something, but she chose to stay silent.

The dim lit room had a few offices, made of a wooden desks and chairs which were odd when the rest of the place is full of steel. Something dark and hold slightly pink color on the ground caught his attention.

"Is this stain of the virus?" Jill asked.

"Maybe, it does look like it..." Before he could continue of what he thinks, something white emerged behind an office, it looked like a bloated corpse, nothing like any creature they had seen before.

"What's that?" Jill asked as she and Leon aimed their weapons. "You're asking me?"

The creature's movement seems similar to a zombie, but faster, they couldn't see any features in what is suppose to be the face.

"You're ugly." Leon said and begin to fire.

 **Thank you for reading, what do you think so far? :)**


	4. Chapter 4 The Troubling creatures

**Special thanks to The95will.**

 **Chapter 4. "The troubling creatures."**

Two flashes of light escaped the barrel of Jill's weapon.

The thing it just jiggled from the vibration and wormed forward.

Leon provided the same help with his Wing Shooter. It slowed down a little, showing a leech- like organ and it was coming at her.

The leech thing lifted the front part of itself to expose what appeared to be a mouth. Jill's weapon clicked. It was empty… With no option, Jill walked backward for 5 steps as Leon picked up the pace with his gun.

To the left and Leon fired three more bullets at it head. "Not today!" he shouted.

Still it kept going, spreading a white liquid over the ground. The new magazine entered his weapon, then Jill came forward feeling the anger boiling within her, "The hell with you!" The barrel snapped fiercely as she looked forward. Just in time for Leon to reload as well.

The leech thing was a dozen feet away as she fired her weapon. The front end of the leech lifted for her fire into the mouth like opening.

Leon's Wing Shooter clicked as the front end of the leech dropped to the ground. It seeped up then it died at last. Jill still frowned at the leech. The outer layer of it seeped some kind of fluid and it continued to shrink in size. Eventually, a puddle of blood was all that was left… "We have to show this to O'Brien," she said as she took out a tool that appeared to have a hand and a trigger.

The top portion of it had a green lit screen that provided a clear view of what it was aimed at. The barrel it wasn't for bullets but for a laser scanner. The tool was called the Genesis Scanner. "You think this thing was a human?" she asked.

"We only saw the effect on the fish, but this thing is humanoid in shape." Leon responded."Maybe it was."

He shuffled around the room moving the pots and pans out of the way and nothing seemed to be useful. At the end of the large room, there is another door. It was a heavy steel door, it obviously need two people for it to open. "Are you done?" he called her. "Coming." Jill holstered the Genesis Scanner. Leon stood at the door and flicked the handle. The thing felt stiff on the hinges. "What did you find out?" Leon asked as he continued with the door.

"Well, that leech thing. It matches the composition of humans but without the bone structure. 90% of it was water. I never seen anything even similar to this." Jill said back as she watched Leon at the door. "Need help?" Jill tilted her head. "I got it." Leon grumbled.

"On three we give it a go." Jill took a deep breath.

"One… two… three!" Jill counted off as both of them raised their left legs and kicked the center of the door.

The door flopped to the ground as Jill stepped over it. 'The hinges must have been loose.' Jill thought to herself. Leon walked over the door with pursed lips. Jill didn't notice it as she walked past him with her weapon at the ready.

Leon did the same with the Wing Shooter. "Ladies first." Leon clicked the safety off. Jill chuckled, "Really?"

She did the same with her weapon. Leon knew what Jill was packing. A PC356.

Great ammo capacity in the magazines, the grip was modified to be slightly smaller for her fingers.

Something Leon noticed that plenty of B.S.A.A. troops use them. The next room was dark, there is no source of light in there.

Not even a port window. Leon put on his headlight while Jill used a flashlight that was strapped to her uniform. The two continued in parallel to each other in case of danger. That humanoid leech thing was still fresh in their minds. The two continued down the hallways until a room with a glass window showed the inside. "Look at that," Leon whispered. "It is an altar right?"

Jill nodded. Not so much the altar itself as what was in the wall. A yellow flag, with an image of a dark blue dog. "Veltro was here." Jill stated. Around the altar, there were four burned down candles, and a sign of blood stains and hand prints, it was in a word creepy.

"Jill you have to see this," Leon said, raising his voice slightly.

He held the paper in his hand as he read it. "He promised me, none of this will happen, he said I'll gain power and find the answers I want." He looked at the back of the paper, "It is over, I swear I'm going to kill him." The second paper has few words, and most of them are blurred out. "Vengeance is what we seek...Sea...Terragrigia's last... lost...heart. Jack Norman."

"Jack Norman," Jill murmured, "where did I hear that name before? I'm not sure. Maybe he is the one mentioned in the Federal Bioterrorism Commission." Leon started to fold the paper. "I think Hunnigan will be Interested to investigate the name, see where it will lead us." He pocketed the paper

and Jill nodded in agreement. "Alright," she said stepping back—and then something huge and green was swooping down toward them from the high ceiling, something that have an incredibly high pitched screech, and he flapped giant tentacles- like arms.

The thing stopped for a moment, long enough for Leon and Jill to get a clear look at it. It was another strange creature they hadn't seen before, it look like a hunter almost, but much bigger.

It pulled up at the last instant, and jumped very fast back into the wall, but had come close enough for stains of it liquid to be over them.

Leon pushed Jill forward with one arm, toward the door in the other side. The door though won't open. "Open the door hurry!" he screamed.

"Right," she shouted and started to use her lock pick.

Leon fired at the fast creature, but it seems much stronger than the bloated corps, it didn't seems to be much effected.

He could see the creatures claws come toward him, in a hurry he kneeled down and fired at it arm. "Hurry Jill!"

He stood up and searched for the creature, 'damn it where did it go?'... He thought.

It took him by surprise, the tentacles hold into his throat. He could feel his pulse quicken.

His left arm reached for his knife, and he stabbed it multiple times, until he was free. He fell to his back and shook his head.

At last, he heard the sound of the lock, "Go!" Jill yelled.

They ran inside and tried to close the door, but the creature arm stopped them.

Jill fired twice while Leon pushed the door close. A latch could be heard as Jill and Leon panted for air. They were silent for a moment, taking their breath after the scary thrill they went through. "Leon, Jill are you two alright?" Hunnigan's voice buzzed.

"Hunnigan, you won't believe what we saw here, a new mutation..." Jill spoke to her and walked forward slowly.

Leon winced, because of a feeling in his leg. It was like his veins are about to pop. 'That wasn't easy.' He thought.

Leon didn't pay attention until the end of Jill and Hunnigan's conversation.

"Jack Norman, I will talk to you when I find Information about him," Hunnigan said. "Leon! The B.S.A.A. agents are still on their mission in the mountains. It seem that they found something. I'll keep you posted okay?"

"Yeah. Got it." Leon responded. "A guy named Quint is watching over, he will report back in to you next time. Good luck." Hunnigan cut out on the radio. Leon knew it meant she was done informing them.

At last they went through the small, closed corridor.

"So, how long you have been working for the government?" she asked, in an attempt to change the mood.

"I started in 2002. with a mission in south America. It's been four years, and I feel like it went like a blink of an eye, unlike you." he chuckled. "True, I've been an agent for almost nine years now." Jill felt some comfort know that she was with an experienced agent was alongside her.

Once they were in the other side if the building, it happened: he felt his heart slammed against his rib cage, and his breathing quickened.

Without any control over his movement he touched Jill's hand."Wai..."

"What is it?" he heard her voice, but he couldn't see her clearly. It was like she is far away and he was painfully falling in a dark abyss. His eyes had some color and faded to black after several seconds.

...

"Leon, can you hear me?" Jill's soothing voice echoed in his ear as his senses returned to him. Slowly he opened his eyes to the light, he could feel a sharp pain in the back of his head.

He moaned and closed his eyes again."Not my lucky day." he whispered.

"Good." She put her finger in her right ear. "Hunnigan, come in?" she called, but she couldn't hear an answer. "Hunnigan do you read me?"

Jill felt Leon's hand on hers, "Let's just finish our job here already, I don't think she'll answer you." he said and pulled himself up.

"Take it easy." She pressed her hand on his chest to try to keep him on the ground.

"I can manage, believe me." he said and pushed her hand away.

He leaned up and placed his left hand on his forehead, taking a moment to feel better.

Something obviously rattled him again and he couldn't stand. Jill again offered a hand to help him onto his feet.

Once he was on his feet, Jill signaled him to follow her. Leon and Jill moved through the east side of the building and back out into the small hall where he fainted. They searched for anything useful that could help their investigation and came up with nothing.

They agreed to head to the west side.

They found a small door that would take them to some place, it was the same color as the wall which make it hard to notice.

It was locked by password. "This must be one of the secret doors." Jill pointed out as she kneeled down to get a look at the lock.

Leon pressed his index finger on his ear. "Anybody, do you read me?"

"This is Jackass, I read you Leon" A quirky deep voiced buzzed in their radio. "Can you hear me? Hello?"

Jill looked away from Leon and pressed her hand on her left ear. "We copy Quint."

"How are you two holding up?" he asked.

"Aside from the ugly B.O.W. we are doing fine, and we discovered some things. This place is more than just a factory, I hope what we gathered is enough for the Investigation." Leon answered.

"We found a secret door, can you please hack it?" Jill whispered anxiously. After a moment of silence, Quint answered like a drunk party guy. "Sure, give me a few seconds okay."

"Copy." Leon lowered his finger from his ear. He remembered from a document Hunnigan gave him which informed him of Quint Catchem. Single, anti social and an excellent computer data technician. Leon knew his background enough to trust him and so does the B.S.A.A.

"What do you think we will find in there?" Jill asked to break the awkward silence. "Don't let your guard down," he said coldly, "We'll probably encounter that green thing again." "Nothing ever stays dead…" Jill thought out loud which caused Leon to chuckle in response. "Jackass here," the radio buzzed. "The password is 3b 248c."

Jill was about to turn her body back toward the door, when Leon stopped her. "Hold on, you always get the door work."

Jill stood up and looked at him. "My turn." Leon knelt in front of the small screen."3B 24..." he murmured.

Jill ejected the magazine of her pistol to get a look at it. It felt half empty which didn't sit well with her. So she swapped that magazine for a new one. The weapon clicked and as Leon finished the code. "Let's go." Leon said after they heard the sound of the click.

"On three." Leon said, ready to kick the door. "One… two… three!" The two agents entered with weapons drawn, their faces determined and seemingly unafraid to fight whatever they could see inside, after everything they saw so far. There was a stairs in front of them, leading to another door up. "Seriously?" Leon said in an obvious annoyance. "What kind of a place is this?"

"One with terrible taste." Jill replied. Leon took point while Jill aimed from the opposite wall.

The tactic was that so the both of them could make a crossfire to suppress their targets. In their half way there, Leon's ears caught the sound of a groaning up ahead. Leon raised his left hand in a fist for Jill to stop in place. His index finger pointed ahead. Jill nodded as her grip on her pistol tightened. She inched step by step as Leon did the same. Their footsteps made a little sound as possible as they found a slightly opened door in the hall. Leon turned the door handle and pushed it open, the room is a little wide, right in the middle two bloated corpses like they thought. Leon frowned at their targets. Jill was about to whisper something, but her voice was cut off by a sound of a movement, a heavy steps that reverberated through the room.

Leon and Jill both stared at one another, like they asked each other. 'What's that sound?'

The sound came again. It was the sound of something hard clattering against the steel. Whatever it was, it was big and getting closer from the sound of it. It was hard to tell where it came from; the echoes masked the direction. Leon blinked his eyes to signal Jill.

He directed her at a shadow down the room. A shadow threw the two corpses aside. A giant bulge of rotten flesh, then came forward repeating the words. "It is over." Jill's heart started to pound in her chest. "Run." Leon broke the silence.

The both of them opened fire as Jill's heart hammered within her as she was afraid to look at the creature.

Jill moved first as she walked backward for provide cover fire for Leon to back away as well.

They ran down for their lives, a stink has appeared in the air, a terrible sour smell that would have made Jill throw up in mere seconds if she'd had time to bother.

She wasn't sure if that smell is coming from the creature or something else inside the room.

The two burst through another room as Leon scanned the room for anything they could do. There was another door in the room. Leon reached the door and hold it, "Hurry." Just as she reached Leon, he fired with both of his Wing Shooters.

She ran past him and went through the door. The second she was out, he leaped back into the next room. Jill slammed the door shut the moment Leon entered, they heard its body brush against the door, the sound of its large body trying to break through the door. They waited and stared at the door. The creature didn't beat the door like how most have done in the past, but it was trying to push it. "So now what? Do you think our weapons are capable to hurt that thing?" Jill asked.

"We're on luck I have two grenades." he said and both of them walked backwards with their weapons at the ready. Leon took one grenade out and offered it to Jill. She accepted it and placed it into her rear pocket. Jill ejected the spent magazine for another one. "I'm ready." The door flow open and a pillar like legs appeared. They are slightly taller than an average human. Leon's Wing Shooter did the talking and two flashes appeared in the room. Four bullets went straight through the creatures head, but it did not slow him down. Jill fired four more bullets.

The creature groaned loudly and raised his right arm, it was extensively muscular and tipped with an organic mimicry of a buzz saw. It looked like some sort of mangled bones. One leg lumbered forward as the saw revved up. The teeth of the saw clearly had blood caked on it. It stepped forward as the fat of it wiggled as the saw lifted toward the ceiling. "Run." Jill shouted while her gun fired and she trembled as she aimed.

The saw came down for her upper body be pulled back which helped her dodge the creature's arm. She saw Leon move from her left to get behind it, and fired again. "Try to slow it down!"

Jill walked backwards while firing multiple times, "Come at me." she taunted with new found confidence.

In the middle of the excitement her gun clicked. "Damn it." she said in a half panicked whisper. Leon fired at it legs again, "Hold on!" he shouted. Jill reached for her knife, swiftly she throw it at the left leg of the creature. Another loud screech came out of it and it kneeled on the ground, stunned for a moment. "Now!" Jill screamed and took a grenade out of her pocket... Leon followed her with another grenade and they jumped in the opposite direction A loud explosion echoed in the building.

The bone saw stopped revving as the creature took a step back from all the damage Leon and Jill did. It roared to the ceiling as the body started to seep and it melted to the ground… dead. The blood made that clear. "Good job." Leon said in an obviously sarcastic voice.

He took a moment to catch his breath. "Yeah." she gasped. "Let's go to that room now." They went through the broken door and up the stairs. "I hope we find some clues in there, after what we just went through." Again they had to use their lights to look around the room.

Both of their ears had a low ringing sound to it. They knew it just meant the fight with the creature was just really loud. It had two offices that faced to each other. All the windows in the place were bolted with large wooden parts. Jill checked the desk, and looked through the stained papers.

One lone paper caught her attention, large title on it. 'Project NEMESIS.'

"No way." she said in a somber tone to catch Leon's attention.

"What did you find?" he inquired as he walked beside her. Her hands trembled as she gave him the paper. Leon pretended not to notice. and he read it carefully, each word, it awakened old memories in his mind. "Wasn't this supposed to have been destroyed in Raccoon City?" he said. "It cannot be revived, unless there is some possibility of..." He stopped after he heard a pause in her breathing, "Jill?"

She was frozen in place, in her eyes there is fear like he never seen in anyone before. "What's wrong?" he asked again.

"Not that," she said like she is talking to herself. "Not again, I thought I killed that thing."

The realization hit him hard, he was working with another damaged heart. "Are you another survivor of Raccoon City?"

Jill looked back at him. Her shaking stopped as she holstered her pistol. "Yeah, I... was there…" Jill noticed his eyes softened, it was like she could see sympathy in them, almost."Where were you?" he was about to talk more,when they heard another groaning sound, coming closer. she walked passed him."Ask questions later, after we take care of whatever is coming."

 **Thank you for reading, Reviews are always appreciated.**

 **I'm going to stop here for awhile, But I'll come back and update.**


	5. Chapter 5 Into the depth part 1

**Chapter 5. "Into the depth part 1."**

...

The sun has tilted towards the horizon, its light falling upon the garden in spite of the gathering clouds, giving the grass a beautiful golden glow. The flower stems and their peddles waved in unison to a gentle breeze.

A graceful woman stood in a small room, her fine raven hair tied back in a pony tail and with only a few touches of gray mixing in with the dark locks. And what gray there was fit in well with and indeed enhanced upon her lovely yet mature features. She wore a simple yet well made black suite and bluetooth headset ready to leave... in theory at least. In reality however she needed to be in this room for a moment longer, to catch her breath and get her game face on, and to just... remember what past few years had cost her, and remind her why she still kept fighting despite it all.

The room had a small bed with white sheets and two pillows, in the left side of the room is a small desk with tiny school bag filled of books and pens. The walls of the room were of a pale faded blue color. _'same as the sky!"'_ A young voiced piped up from the recesses of her memory.

She couldn't help the smile that broke out across her features. the memories are still fresh in her mind from when he was still a silly seven year old cutie. A boy she knew.

Their relationship had changed greatly through the years and she couldn't understand what happened, where her little boy had gone to. Being in this room actually helped her to feel a bit better and strengthen the hope which still flickered in her heart.

She is Elizabeth Kennedy, wife of Senator Steven Kennedy and the two of them were living in a fine looking manor. The married couple dressed up for an event that they personally held great support of. Today they were asked to aid the BSAA during their Investigation.

"Darling, we must leave now." Elizabeth heard his gentle voice call to her, and she sighed.

"I'm coming dear." she said and looked at the room one last time. Down the stairs a tall-athletic looking man stood talking in his cellphone, his skin tanned of long hours jogging under the sun, with just faint bit of scruff caressing his formidable jawline, and anyone who looked at him could immediately could tell he was basically an older version of his son, for the serious resemblances the two of them shared.

"Adam, I assure you we'll help as best as we can." he said with much anxiety evident in his voice. "Is my son already there?"

"Yes, he was paired with a woman named Miss Valentine. His handler told me so far the two of them are out on a mission together." the president spoke.

Elizabeth left the room with a somber exhale of nostalgia. "Let's go Steven, if we're lucky we might get the chance to talk to him."

Steven heaved a long shuddering sigh. "He's stubborn." he looked at her with a teasing smile. "Like you."

Elizabeth playfully smiled in his direction. "I had to be, how else was I gonna get you out of your studies and out on a proper date?" she walked passed him and went through the front door.

"Excuse me madam and sir, we have to leave." he spoke in the phone one last time and hung up.

...

A pair of feet wander through the building in relative silence, save for the occasional grunts and groans as they take care of yet more twisted monstrosities. The duo walked in the same two person formation as before. Their pace was rather slow until they reached the rusty door, and Leon kicked it open.

The very moment they stepped outside, they felt a cold breeze, it carried a familiar bad odor, but it was gone before they could properly identify it.

The clouds hanged low in the sky. Gray and ominous, light flashed along the clouds in the distance. Jagged and vibrant.

They saw the lightning, but heard no thunder, which meant it had to be a long way off, then again, storms move quickly when you don't least expect them. "You two are finally out." a familiar stuffy voice beckoned. "Quint," Jill said with a smile.

The bald member waited for them near the door. "Hey Leon?" he called and tossed a large object at him. Leon couldn't see the object clearly until he caught it. "That's a Genesis Scanner, state of the art tech for detecting and identifying plants, animals and viruses, you're gonna need it." Quint also passed Leon a thigh holster for the Scanner.

"Ah, thanks." He examined the tool carefully. "I don't know how to use it though."

"Better learn quickly then." Quint cracked with a grin. "You two better hurry, O'Brian is waiting," Quint said and pushed them forward. Leon was rather taken aback by how casually the man spoke, despite how they hardly knew one another. _Just like Mike... will probably die like him too._ Leon quickly pushed the thought out of his head, to focus instead on the mission. As always the mission came first and foremost, above any and all feelings of guilt and... grief.

"According to my watch, we've been inside for three hours," he murmured as passed through a small dirt underpass covered in thick layers of moss and salt crystals.

Once they were greeted with light again, they could see a figure, and his back faced them. He wore a light green overcoat and brown pants. It looked all rather dated, but O'Brian looked comfortable with himself. "Ah, there you two are." he said from the moment he saw them.

"You must love to be back in the field, huh?" Jill tilted her head in a friendly manner.

O'Brien's smile grew, "Well, my doctor told me I need exercise." He turned his back on them and looked at the abandoned beach.

"I assume you both know that the FBC cordoned off the entire area," he sighed and went on. "However, the past few weeks a number of mysterious carcasses have washed up." He indicated for them to follow him down the stairs.

"I guess the FBC couldn't cover up this mess," Leon muttered. Jill crossed her arms and whispered. "Anyone who knows what happened here is gonna put two and two together."

"That's why I sent the B.S.A.A. to investigate, I told the president of what is going on and what we're planning," O'Brien stated and glanced back at Leon. "That's when you came into the picture mister Kennedy. The president evidently thinks quite highly of you and your... skills." he murmured. Leon's jaw clenched just a little, and he saw the way the man looked at him. _He knows._

Leon pushed his personal feelings aside and just nodded,"Yeah, Hunnigan informed me of the situation." O'Brien checked the file in his hand one more time before he spoke again. "Did you pick up your new equipment from Quint?" he asked.

Leon slowly took out the Scanner and show it to him. "Yeah, Genesis...something. Same one Jill has."

O'Brian nodded to Leon. From the files Hunnigan had sent to Leon's PDA. Clive R O'Brian, age 58, born in Cleveland, Ohio. A man that grew up on the outskirt of the city and often visited his extended family on a farm. Joined the US Army when he was 22 for the sake of having a job. Calm, collected, and has a sense of justice. It comes to no surprise that he is a key founding member of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance. A firm created in the beginning to be a form of investigation in potential corporations and wrong doers of the world. Sanctioned by the United Nations, the B.S.A.A. has been often used as consultant on many different Bioterror events. Never the ones with any real 'teeth,' since the US government preferred the Federal Bioterrorism Commission. A government firm that O'Brian has spoken up against in the past. The D.S.O. and B.S.A.A. have more of a symbiotic relationship.

Both divisions share and relay information to each other to carry out their tasks.

The D.S.O. or the Division of Security Operations was a long used branch of government intelligence that is involved in many new issues. Bioterrorism being one of them. Since the D.S.O. isn't strictly meant to counter Bioterrorism, which was the main reason to recruit Leon into their organization.

At last they jumped down to the shore, following O'Brien to the weird Carcasses. "Look at this." O'Brien knelt down to check one of them. "They're rotted to hell."

"The skin is so pale, I've never seen anything like it," Leon said.

"Use the Genesis to get a reading on it. The Genesis requires a decent sample size to get an accurate reading, scan the carcasses on the beach and send me your data." Jill and Leon exchanged looks before he answered. "Roger that."

"Make sure to take the lens cap off." Jill joked as she walked ahead of Leon. He looked down at the Genesis Scanner. He sighed as the lens caps were indeed on the Scanner.

"Well, you can't put a cap on these lenses." Leon lightly pointed at his eyes with his left index finger. O'Brian heard that pun clearly and rubbed his forehead.

Jill just shook her head in response. Her eyes focused on the scanner. Leon focused on the green screen, the trigger was heavy to his finger unlike the normal gun, with a simple pull, and the scanner served its purpose. "I'm getting something ..." he heard Jill shout out. It was the same time his screen showed 'metal detected.'

"I got something too, it's from the inside," he holstered the scanner and looked at Jill. "Be careful, okay." he said as he knelt down and hold onto the thing, it was heavy but not too much for him. Slowly he lifted it up, high enough to show what looked like a mouth.

"Don't worry, I've done this before." she said. She bit her lip in disgust and pushed her hand to inside the thing, she searched through the soggy insides, until her gloved fingers touched a metal. "Found it." Heavily she pushed it out, it was vial with dark liquid.

"Isn't this..." she whispered.

"This is not the same as we saw in the video." Leon continued. O'Brien came forward and took the vial from her hand.

"I'll run some test on this, continue with the Investigation." Jill stood up and took a deep breath.

"Roger." Leon was already in front of her scanning another thing, near a cave- like tunnel.

Wondering why he moved without her so suddenly, she pulled her hand back out by reflex. Just in the presence of safety, she was hardwired to react. "Careful you two. God only knows what strains of virus we're dealing with." O'Brien informed over the radio.

With his left arm Leon took one of his Wing Shooters and multiple flashes appeared from the barrel. "Don't worry, we're on it." Leon said.

Jill paced closely behind him and tried to focus her aim on the large mouth, three bullets went through it. The thing fell back to the ground, convulsing in place for several seconds and the sight of it sent a cold chill down Jill's spine.

The creature moved again revealing its wide wretched mouth again. Leon fired several more times, but still the thing kept moving. "Eat this." Jill whispered and the barrel of her gun flashed twice to the mouth. The creature convulsed again and it crawled forward. With every wound they created, the bullets sent ripples through the skin. It moved far faster that it looked, and before Jill knew it, it was within crushing distance to her.

It lifted the front end of itself for an opening to reveal its great maw and consume her. Jill fired three more bullets and the creature howeled its fury at her.

She walked backwards as her weapon was still honed on the creature, never losing her cool, yet poised to spring off to the side if it lunged at her again. The ripples grew in frequency and the body started to shrink. The creature more or less melted. And in its place puddle of water, slime and blood formed.

"I see you two are okay, continue your work, but proceed with extreme caution." They heard O'Brian, he was calm again.

"That's an understatement." Leon joked which in turn caused Jill to roll her eyes at him.

The two of them ventured into the tunnel in silence, they could see another creature on the ground, but it was too small. "Maybe it is a part of a creature." Leon drew the Genesis. Jill kept her pistol at the ready. "I'll go to the other side, you just follow me later." Jill said and took off in a hurry to the other part of the beach.

The place have a broken wooden bridge, left over boats, dead fish all over the shore. The carcasses were close to the bridge. The smell of the fish perfumed the area. What confused Jill was that there weren't any seagulls at the water. This was the prime opportunity to do such a thing.

It seemed that the seagulls knew there was some kind of potential danger. The moment she got close to the thing, there was a sudden explosion of blood and soggy insides, that almost caused her to lose her cool and start shooting off randomly. From the look of it, the thing begun decomposing from the inside rather than the outer layer. 'Ah the smell. Must've ruptured from internal gases.' She thought to herself. Leon came out of the tunnel, and saw the scene before him. "Christ, what a mess." he sighed. "I got this over here, you check the ones behind the rocks."

"Roger that."

Jill went through the small path, it appeared like a hidden took extra care on the placement of her every step. She didn't want her ankle to get caught on anything after all. Jill looked up and noticed another carcass hanged on to a high rock.

Jill aimed her scanner up, when her PDA started ringing. Using her left hand she took the mic and put in her ear. "Yes, Valentine speaking."

"Miss Valentine this is Senator Steven speaking."

Her eyes widened in surprise. It took her a moment to muster a response. "Mister Kennedy, to what do I owe this honor?"

"Ah, you always been a smooth talker Jill. We'll be assisting you in this mission, is Leon there with you?"

Jill rotated her head to look for Leon, and she could see him scanning the beach. "Yes, but we're working at the moment, sir." she answered.

"I understand, but I need you to tell me of the situation so far?"

Jill sighed and looked down at the ground. "The things we saw in the building and in the beach nearby show a true viral infection. We found some message I'm guessing it's written by a man named Jack Norman, we still don't know if he is involved or just a witness of the Terragrigia tragedy."

A tense silence took over the conversation, before Steven answered at last. "I see...thank you. I'll search that name carefully" he whispered. "Right now we got a tail on the other BSAA members and we're watching over them too, keep up the good work."

"Roger that sir," she said and closed her device. Her feet felt the decompression of the sand beneath her boot, before she needed to move. The conversation must have taken long than expected.

She heard sand crunch under shoes. "Are you done here Jill?" A voice came with the noise.

"Yeah," she replied. "I think we have enough samples let's go back to O'Brian."

On the shore, they saw all of the Carcasses move, gathering and coming towards them.

"Great." Leon said and took out both of his Wing Shooters. "It's party time." Without hesitation he stepped forward slowly and his Wing Shooters flashed bits of light.

Jill aimed her gun. She picked up the pace and fired. Giving Leon the chance to reload. Two of the creatures melted before her gun.

"Let's go." Leon took her hand and ran to the opposite direction, upon the bridge.

Leon fired five more bullets into two of the three creatures, while Jill focused her aim on the one. It took a minute for the pair to put them down at last, they took a moment to catch their breath as the Carcasses melted to the sand.

"Finally." Jill breathed a sigh of relief. She looked around to see if there any more danger. Once it was over. Several seagulls dive bombed to the water to carry off several fish… 'Little jerks.' Jill thought to herself.

They made their way back to O'Brian who was waiting anxiously close to the tunnel. "There you are." O'Brian smiled. "Nice work."

"No doubt about it, these corpses show signs of viral infection." Jill spoke up first.

"I don't think its a coincidence, that these things are coming through the FBC's blockade." Leon said.

It wasn't uncommon for the FBC and the DSO to cross paths in jurisdiction. He recalled all the times Hunnigan complained about the paperwork. O'Brian nodded as his expression turned sour. "Well, we did all we can…"

Leon's phone started to ring. It opened the clear phone and flicked it open. The display showed a head view of Hunnigan.

"Leon come in?" Hunnigan's voice came from Leon's phone. He brought his finger to his ear, "Hunnigan, you got anything new for me?" he asked.

"I just got done speaking with the Senator. He has an update about Chris."

"Senator?" Leon spoke in a half surprised tone but deep down he knew whom Hunnigan referred to. He frowned, as he pondered how they could have gotten themselves involved in all of this. "What happened?"

"That's what I want to talk to you about..."

O'Brian looked back at Jill. "We will wait for the results to come back from HQ." he said when his phone started to ring.

He took out of his pocket, the number in the screen told him it must be something bad. "It's the emergency line." he said and answered. Jill nodded to her boss as she glance toward Leon. "Yeah, it's me..."

Leon came back to Jill and touched her shoulder, "I have bad news. There's-."

"What?" O'Brian's voice got louder, cutting Leon off.

"I see, I will take it from here. We'll have to speed things up." In all the time Jill worked with the BSAA, it was a rather rare occasion for O'Brian to raise his voice about anything.

Usually meant something went from bad to worse. With a sigh he turned to face them. "Jill, you are still in the case."

"What happened?" Jill asked. "We lost contact with Chris and Jessica." O'Brian broke eye contact with Jill.

"How?" she asked, worry clear in her voice.

"We're not certain."

"Hunnigan couldn't figure out what happened as well." Leon added.

"Yeah, I've forward their last known coordinates to your PDAs."

Both of them checked their devices and saw the message. A map appeared in the small screen as a green light that flickered to a certain place. "The signal was lost over the ocean. I thought they were in the mountains following a lead on Veltro, but judging from their position, they must be..." Leon trailed off.

"On a ship." O'Brian interrupted. "I'm heading back to HQ, you take charge of the search and the rescue, I'll talk to Parker and see if he can go with you." He put his PDA into his back pocket. "Yes sir." Jill didn't hesitate on her response.

"You can count me in sir," Leon added with a ghostly imitation of what was meant to be a comforting smile, "I kinda owe his sister after all, so its only fair." Jill didn't respond, she was too lost in her own thoughts, _Where are you Chris?_ she felt a hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?" Leon asked. "Looks like it's going to be a tough road."

"Never thought I would be using the tugboat in a rescue mission." She mused.

"At least I'll be seeing prettier sights than decrepit abandoned villages and creepy old castles." Leon said. His Wing Shooter shone in the light as he pulled back the slide, ensuring that a round was loaded into the chamber.

Jill chuckled at this. "Let's go."

 **Thank you for reading, reviews are always appreciated.**


	6. Chapter 6 Into the depth part 2

**This chapter has been updated.**

 **Chapter 6."Into the depth part 2."**

 **6:08 P.M.**

 **Mediterranean Sea.**

The boat rolled left and right, like a leaf in a windy day. The torrents of rain came down with enough force to sting exposed flesh, which just made it all the more difficult to see and assess their quarry. The rumbling thunder, and flashing lightning certainly didn't help Leon's nerves much, just made him all the more uneasy.

Something deep down within him could feel that something was incredibly off about the place they were heading towards, and he didn't like it, he didn't like it one single bit.

It was Leon's turn to drive the boat through the storm. Jill wore her jumpsuit while he wore a wet suite he'd borrowed time from the DSO. The suit Jill had was modified on the shoulders and her hips to be a bit loose so as to offer better mobility. Leon's suit was somewhat bulkier in comparison. The torso section had several straps for his weapon holster along with a blade on his upper right chest. The blade had a small insignia of a snake on it. For his legs, Leon's suit expanded slightly so it could house more equipment. Leon could handle it since his legs are part of his workout routine.

Jill sat behind him, with her M92F in her left hand and she stared blankly at it. She pressed the trigger several times knowing full well the safety was on. The gun resisted her of course, yet she kept on pressing, despite knowing the hell the BSAA armorers would give her. She needed to know that it was set, that it wouldn't go unexpectedly and put a premature end to an innocent life. The last thing she needed was for another mistake, like the one she and her old comrade Barry had made, which had nearly cost his daughter's life.

...

"Jill, we're here." Leon said. "Unbelievable."

Jill made her way out of the cabin while shielding her eyes from the vicious rain with her hand. A large ghastly figure slowly appeared and in the midst of the fog they saw her name.

"Queen Zenobia."

"Incredible!" Jill said and she rotated her head to look at Leon. "Take us around. Let's find a boarding point."

Leon went back to the pilot's seat, to carefully steer them around to the aft end of the ship, while Jill continued to admire the massive construct, wondering at how something that big and heavy could float upon the sea. _*sure is quite a different from that old rowboat dad used to take us out fishing on*_ The wooden rowboat from her childhood memories was barely an ant in comparison to this great behemoth, though she couldn't help but feel... that the old mildew ridden boat that always had a small leak somewhere, no matter how much work she and her father put into it, was a lot more safer and more welcoming than whatever she'd find aboard the Zenobia.

Jill took it upon herself to get their gear, more specifically grappling hooks. Complements of Quint.

They aimed their grappling hooks towards the railing. "Ready?" Jill asked.

Leon nodded, shivering slightly "Let's go, we'll catch pneumonia if we stay much longer out here in the storm." With the release of his finger the strength of the rope pulled them both toward the ship.

Within few seconds, they jumped off the railing and holstered the tool.

"It's been ninety-four minutes since Chris and Jessica dropped off the radar." Jill was the first to speak the fact.

"But their last known coordinates puts them…" he continued and took out both his Wing Shooters.

"Right on this ship."

A sudden and over the top dramatic flash of lightning nearly blinded them, and Leon sighed "I can just tell this is gonna be one of THOSE missions."

Jill chuckled, though it was more from nervous energy than any real humor she found in his words.

They made their way up the stairs in silence, carefully watching their surroundings when the ship shook beneath them, making them both lose their balance, and stumble around a bit, the sound of a bell tolling soon followed. Leon hold onto the railing, while Jill just tried to remain still and regain her balance. "What was that?" Leon said though his voice seems quiet, lost in the rain and the sea raging against the ship. Several splashes could be overheard on the side of the hull. It was a new unsettling feeling.

"No idea." Jill's eyes focused on specific location.

In the other side there was an orange door, locked with chains. "Leave that to me." Leon came forward before she had the chance to say something.

The barrel of his gun flashed once, and with the second shot the lock fall to the ground. Slowly he opened the door with Jill following behind, watching their back.

"A real master." Jill smirked.

"No, I'm just a pro." Leon retorted.

It was dark inside, the place was full of boxes and a broken ducts in the middle, the smell inside was a mix of what seemed like a rotten fish, and the noxious gasses all too often associated with human decay, a part of the ground covered in something unidentifiable.

"What a stench." Jill said through the hand she held over her nose and mouth, trying to adjust herself gradually to the stink, only letting in smidgeon of the smell in her nostrils at a time, and even that was almost more than she felt she could bare. The stench was even worse than the zombies she'd faced in the old spencer mansion. "Place feels like its been abandoned for a while."

She crouched down to check over a body near the door, the man had a large wound from his collar bone down to the stomach. The bones underneath looked completely torn out. By the sight of the darkened patch beside it, he'd bleed out within seconds. The skin mixed with the muscle hung loosely to the bones.

"Poor soul, rest in peace." she murmured.

Leon on the other hand used the Genesis to check their surroundings. For some reason, the tool couldn't read much of anything useful. "These things, they're almost like the carcasses in the beach." he said as he lowered the tool.

"More questions than answers at the moment." Jill replied as she stood up and prepared to open the door.

The doors opened without any sound, it revealed a corridor much darker than the other room, they could feel a cold breeze inside, the silence spoke volumes of the horror awaiting them.

The two Agents went through the door as quiet as possible, the hallway had few steel step, and in the other side they found another door.

They could hear the sound of something clattering, "I don't think we're alone." Leon whispered as he slowly turning the door handle, with an echoing creek the door revealed a small storage room.

It had a steel shelve, carrying large boxes seems to be filled of some things.

Leon tapped Jill's shoulder, and he nodded at something.

Jill followed his nod and she saw a large shadow behind the shelves, with her left arm she draw her gun, her steps were quiet and careful.

Leon was on the right side with one of his guns ready.

Though the other side was empty, the ducts leaked a white liquid. "I hate cat and mouse game." Leon said while he watched the air ducts, his index finger crept to the trigger.

"Let's just hope we don't run into whatever is leaking this." Jill said.

"When have we ever been that lucky?" Leon said with a wry chuckle, reminding her of the truth, of all she went through. "Face it Valentine, bad luck is in our nature…"

At last they made their way through the next door, they could hear the faint sound of the storm outside, echoing through the hallway.

Together they went down the stairs, when they saw movement in the ducts above them, a heavy movement going down.

"See, our little friend is following us." Leon whispered.

They ran down the steps, Jill leading them to the right.

"There!" Jill slowed, and pointed.

To the right of the corridor just ahead was what looked like an elevator?

Leon wasn't sure it was the best course of action, seeing as they were barely into their search of the ship, still they could always come back here and see where it leads.

He pushed the button, and nothing happened like there is no electricity in it.

"This one isn't working ether." Jill said, she was standing near an opened door, for another elevator.

Leon followed Jill through the corridor, when the sound of something shattering violently startled him, and swiftly he drew his gun and began searching for the source.

There in between the two elevators, the duct was broken and a body of one of the crew of the ship dangled from it. The eyes were rolled back and in the mouth several maggots swam around in the feast. Leon cringed at the sight.

The man's right arm was swollen, misshapen and pale, like the skin of the other creatures.

"Do you think the infection spread with a bite?" Jill asked.

Leon rubbed his forehead, he felt tired, and almost nervous enough for him to justify taking one of his pills ahead of schedule... almost "Isn't that usually the case? hmm even if it isn't, we're gonna search this place top to bottom and back again till we find out more of how this works anyhow, and if we can't find anything, then the lab should be able to figure it out from the samples we collect with the genesis."

"True."

They continued down the corridor, and they saw a door blocked with two large steel tables, the light of a vending machine can be seen. It read the logo of Sprunk soda and the light behind it had a light green fade into the area. The light flickered several times which set Leon and Jill on edge.

Leon was about to speak, when another sound of movement appeared above them, dust was falling from the ducts like the whole thing was about to collapse.

Silently they both sagged, leaning against the wall near the second door in the corridor.

They could hear more movement inside.

A creature's hungry cries, hear the sound of his heavy steps against the metal.

Within a few seconds, the sound was gone.

Jill looked at Leon's eyes, without speaking he nodded and together they kicked the door open.

The place was entirely deserted, not a single sign of whatever had been causing the ruckus. Leon huffed with annoyance and looked around casually, though he didn't lower his gun. It appeared to be a lounge, there was a table near the wall, and two of them in the middle. "So, you think the machine still works, I'm thirsty."

Jill stopped in front of him, after hearing these words. "Is this your attempt to be funny Mister Iceman?"

"Hey, I never claimed to be funny."

A loud noise came from behind her, sound of a steel breaking. With a gasp she turned around, gun ready in her hand, though there was nothing but a rat.

"I hate it when that happens." Leon said causally and he walked in front of her to the other side of the Lounge.

There was a rusty juice machine, and a few other other machines damaged to the point where they couldn't even identify what they were. the juice machine dripped with of whatever colored drink it housed.

The door behind was half open, and the two agents walked towards it carefully with their guns leveled and prepared for whatever could appear.

They stood outside of the door, their ears tuned for whatever it could be.

Cold silence welcomed them, though both of them knew that such silence is not a good sign.

Slowly Leon pushed the door open revealing a dirty kitchen; there was a body lying in the table in front of them, his face was very missed up like something squashed it. The assumption was lead to that conclusion as the parts of the body including the bones looked more like a paste than a humanoid structure.

"Not my kind of pancake." Leon checked him over. Jill observed her surroundings with her Genesis, the floor was filled with blood and more of the strange ooze especially around the grating in the middle of the kitchen.

"Leon a little help here. There is something under the grating, maybe with the Genesis we can get a proper reading." she called him.

"Roger." He holstered his weapon and bend down to hold the steel grating, it was heavy to his fingers still with more strength he lifted it up high enough for Jill to check it.

Jill looked through the green screen, looking over the rotten flesh, it took one second when the tool detected a metal, "I'm getting something," she said and she put the tool aside.

"Give me a sec." her hand searched through the soggy flesh until she found it, a gun stuck.

Her heart beat went heavy, her mind raced along, as she pulled the gun out of the hole, the trigger was stuck in a white liquid.

"Is that Chris's gun?" Leon asked as he let go of the grating at last, feeling his fingers a little numb.

"No." a sound of click came from the other side of the kitchen.

"Oh look, someone just opened the door for us." Leon said and started running towards the door.

"Easy partner," Jill followed behind.

Without hesitation Leon kicked the door open and took a peek through, gun first, and found it led to another hallway, they went through in silence, the hallway this time appeared to be dimly lit, unlike what they saw before.

They sprinted down the stairs and they found two doors in the end. Jill went to the first door in front of them, and she peeked inside the small, mail opening.

The room was lit with one lamp dangling from the ceiling, under the light she saw him, his back was facing her, and his hands were tied behind the chair.

"Chris! Chris." she shouted and kicked the door. "Come on say something."

Leon came forward and looked inside, "Jill, are you sure that's him?" he looked back at her." I mean we can only see his back."

"I know its him," she shouted, "We have to get him out, we have to go right now and look..."

Leon put his hand on her mouth. "Slow down beautiful," he said with a smirk.

Jill heaved a long sigh, and nodded.

"Alright," he said as he let go of her mouth. "Now let's go and find the key."

They went through the second door in the hall, and it led to a stairs, up and down.

"Going up?" Jill whispered.

Leon was about to speak when out of nowhere, he felt a very heavy weight fall upon him, his grip in the gun loosened and with a grunt he fell backwards over the railing.

"Leon!" Jill screamed in horror.

The creature stood between her and the stairs, it had long, claw-like arms. These arms folded several times as razor like bones retracted out of the pale flesh. It flickered about as it approached her. The head of the creature had similar razors like the arms.

"Come at me." she taunted. The creature's steps seems a little heavier than the other creature she saw before.

She fired at the creature uncontrollably and the reaction was immediate and repulsive. The body began to tremble, and a squeal erupted into the place. The creature's step was halted, and Jill took the opportunity and she took a grenade from her rear pocket and her thumb at the pin.

It rolled to the creature's feet.

The explosion echoed in the hall, and the sound of Jill's fast movement followed.

"Leon!" she called, but to her surprise and dismay the stairs was broken, she cannot go any further.

"Leon, answer me!" she screamed again, she couldn't see anything down, but darkness. "Damn it!" Jill couldn't see the bottom. Her flashlight could only go so far.

Jill took a moment to think about her options, Chris is locked up and she had to find a key, Leon is probably injured down there, elevator is broken and she cannot use it.

At last she made up her mind. "Leon do you read me?" she used the radio hoping beyond hope that he could hear her. Still there wasn't any response.

She holstered her gun and ran upstairs thinking, " Note to self; find a way to go down and look for your partner."

The door upstairs took her to another hallway, she could hear the sound of the storm very clearly here, and near some steel steps she could see the light of thunder, from a broken window.

Slowly she made her way up to the small hallway, looking over any creature that could be around. Though there was nothing there but the sound of the heavy rain leaving stains inside.

'I hate being left alone.' she thought. She went through the first door near the window, and she found herself in darkness again.

With a bated breath she used her flashlight strapped in her uniform. The room appeared to have bunk beds in both sides and an opened bathroom in the front.

She could hear the unmistakable sound of another bloated corps, and it was mixed with water.

She checked her ammo and slid a new magazine to her sidearm. The hammer snapped back and the barrel clicked in place. With so much determination she went through the bathroom ready to fight. Jill Valentine felt more than ready for whatever awaited her.

 **Thank you for reading, I hope you liked this.**

 **Special thanks to The Grinning Psychopath.**


	7. Note

I do not think I will be coming back with an update anytime soon.

I do not feel so good anymore, I lost someone I love recently. I want to be there for the funeral and the family.

I need to rest, time out for me sorry.

...GreenleafEverlove..


	8. Chapter 7 Separated

**Chapter 7. "Separated."**

The water ran from under one of the toilets. Just by the reflection of the light, the place leaked water. Jill made sure to place her footing carefully. "What? Someone is showering and cleaning."

She heard some form soft movement, and stopped breathing. She holstered her pistol then she tugged at her back for a sling to greet her hand, then pulled on it for her secondary weapon, which was an MP5k sub-machine gun, and walked while focusing her aim at the toilet doors.

Toward the back by the third door she'd come through, a seated corpse seemed to slump toward her. "Sorry to Interrupt." she said and opened fire.

The loud noise of the gun and flashes echoed through the bathroom, like a thunder along with flashes of orange light encompassing the room. The creature jerked back several times and it stopped moving.

It took few seconds for the creature to melt, with a sigh Jill continued her way to the next room wary of nearby sounds. Jill ejected the clip and judged the weight of it, she used half the clip.

'Pretty sloppy Valentine.' Jill nagged herself.

The next room had more bunk beds, though there is a desk and lockers in the other side. Each of the lockers looked to have been mostly put into place. Several of the doors hung open revealing the contents. Jill drifted her light toward it to see a bottle of painkillers at the top of one of the lockers. She grabbed the bottle and it felt mostly new.

'Could come in handy.' Jill mentally shrugged.

Still though, the lack of light was unsettling.

Getting troubled by all of this she ran out of the room, she found herself in the other side of the hallway.

The hallway had two decorated doors; one was to her immediate left. She checked the handle of the door. 'Locked… figures.' Jill wasn't too surprised by it. The other one was in front of her sealed with metal crates. Each of them looked pretty heavy to move.

She could hear the sounds of corpses, though it seems they were far away and a door closing fast. The way the sound came, just sent a shiver down her spine. From what Jill could tell, the Oozes skin were of a slimly state. It grazes along the metal flooring and the wet sticky sounds of the skin rubbing against it.

 _Creepy_ wasn't the good word in the situation, it didn't begin to describe the terror she felt in her gut.

She'd seen fear cripple the bravest of soldiers, and she knew better than to dwell on thoughts of monsters she could find in the dark rooms and corners.

Jill went down the hallway quietly. She slipped through the door at the end weapon ready, there she found stairs and in the end there was more liquid, she knew it was a sign of more creatures here. The way the slime shined off the light was much different compared to water.

When she went down the last steel step, a scream of terror echoed, a sound sent chill down her spine.

'Someone is here.' She thought to herself and sprinted down the stairs, feeling her heart hammer in her chest.

In the front she was face to face with a woman surrounded by creatures screaming. "Help"

Jill's senses kicked in and she opened fire on the glass. The force of the glass made the corpses halt and back away a little from the woman. From the first glance, Jill could tell the woman was blonde. But now wasn't the time for in depth observations.

With a bated breath she took out another clip and reloaded her gun.

The creatures seems to bend down in front of the woman who is laying in fear, shaking. The woman frantically waved her legs about as she crawled backward into a wall, she whimpered in fear. Jill came closer and fired none stop at the two creatures. Several specks of blood spurted to the wall behind the Oozes.

In few seconds the corpses melted into fluid.

She noticed the woman tried to look behind her, her lips were moving but Jill couldn't hear what she was saying clearly.

"Hold on." Jill placed her hands carefully to not to cut herself as she jumped through the window. And she heard a wet sound, Jill looked down on her feet and she saw a large amount of blood from where the woman was laying. A pool of crimson flowed from where she was.

"My god."

She knelt down before her, "Hang in there, I'll get you out." Though deep down Jill wasn't sure the woman could survive the blood loss.

The woman's lips moved again," I...do not..." she gasped and coughed blood. "Want...to die."

"Just stay with me, I'll find something to help you I promise. Keep talking, what's your name?" Jill said as she stood up and pulled the white curtain nearby.

For now, to use this and stop the bleeding for a while. When Jill looked back at the woman, she appeared like she is chocking on something, her eyes rolled back and she went limb. The shivering stopped and the light of her eyes faded away.

Jill watched her for what seemed an eternity, the woman didn't move again, the only sound can be heard that of the rain outside. She knelt in front of her again, "I'm sorry I couldn't help you." She took the suitcase from behind her and looked through it, hoping there is some information about the woman's Identity.

She found a blue file and the first page it read on the top left...FBC Report.

'The FBC again?' Jill thought and went to the next page.

"Jill do you read me?" Leon's voice buzzed through the radio.

Half surprised she answered. "Leon? Where are you?"

"It is look like I'm in the guest cabins, how are you holding up?" he asked.

Jill looked back at the woman, the feeling of pity wash over her. She heaved a long sigh and answered. "I found a survivor, the B.O.W. got her though."

Jill was actually relieved it wasn't Jessica; Chris's partner.

"Who was she?" Leon asked.

"I'm still trying to piece that together." Jill answered and continue looking over the file. "I found a blue file in her suitcase... it speak of the FBC again, they're involved in this. The file mention Jack Norman, remember the name?"

In the corner of her eyes, she saw a key shining in the light.

..

"Yeah, it is look like this mess revolve around him. I'll try to find my way to you, be careful." he said.

"Roger. I'll go back and help Chris."

Jill put the file back on the suitcase and took the bloody key from the ground. 'Hang in there Chris, I'm coming.'

* * *

Leon heard voices, far away, as he lay in a kind of a dream. He thought he saw someone watching him, the figure was speaking some words to him, but he couldn't be sure what was he saying. Who had neither helped nor hindered him.

The only words he heard were. "Wolf...trap...judgment... do go...hate..."

"Who..." he tried to speak. "Are you?" as his other senses returned to him.

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

Leon tasted blood in his mouth and the aches and pains in his body came, too. For a moment he thought he'd never be able to move again. He opened his eyes again to the dark stairs, he couldn't see anyone there.

With a loud shout, he pushed himself and stood on his feet. His whole body felt heavy and the pain was barely tolerable.

He checked his weapons, and saw that he lost one of his Wing-Shooters along with two clips for them.

There was a half opened wooden door in front of him. "Great." he murmured and took his gun out. He made his way limping and pushed the door with his left arm.

It revealed a well-cleaned hallway' it had two large paintings in both sides. The small hallway had one door in the front and another clean way, it had a fine china cabinet. "Right path is always been a good luck for me." he said and went right.

In the end of the hallway there was another wooden-door bright light coming out of it. A bead of sweat flowed form his hair to the nape of his neck, he tried to move as quiet as possible.

He peeked through the door, to make sure nothing is there; all he could see is a table full of plates.

Leon's boots scuffed a shards of broken glass across the floor of what appears to be the way to guest cabins. He was in a large hall decorated with yellow lights, right in front of him there was three tables full of dinner plates; the food though was rotten and full of worms that ate most of it, the smell in the air was sickening. "It's look like we missed a good party." he whispered when a sudden pain came back to him, his back hurts like someone forcefully stretching his spine. He let go of his gun and laid in the ground, holding back screams.

He allowed himself a moment to relax, regain his normal breathing, since the hall was empty. 'That's a fall I'll never forget.' he thought.

A voice appeared out of nowhere, a sound of something splashing on the floor. Leon bit his lip and pushed himself up on his feet, holding his gun tightly ready with his index finger at the trigger.

His eyes scanned his surroundings, still he couldn't see anything. In the corner of his vision he caught movement on the long green curtain covering what looks like a steel door.

"Come out, come out whatever you are." he said as he made his way up the stairs until he was right in front of the thing, but something went through and hit him. It was quick as he couldn't see what it was. The thing caused him pain in his left shoulder, the force of it made him lose balance and almost fall backwards off the stairs.

"What!?" Leon looked down under his foot and there was something sharp; looks like a pale bone. Leon without hesitation fired at the curtain, the vibration made the creature appear at last, it was similar to the other creatures but this one had a bow-like arm and he was about to shot again. Leon jumped down the railing dodging another sharp projectiles. It struck a wall and it wedged itself completely.

The barrel of his gun flashed three times in a row hitting the creature's shoulders and one went through it head.

The creature's step was halted, his head titled to the side reveling leach-like tongue. Leon watched it carefully, waiting for it to melt, but the thing stayed there. "Did I kill it?"

But then the creature pulled his tongue back and start moving again, his large arm were focusing on Leon.

"Awesome."

In a hurry he aimed and fired it at the creature, like he is using a machine gun. He saw the arm move again. Several cracking sounds formed as it reminded Leon of very impractical weapons he encountered in the past. Leon lowered his torso then scrambled to his right side. The projectile completely overshot him.

Again he fired twice at the creature's head. and It stood still there.

'I guess I better use this.' Leon took the opportunity and ran up toward it, slowly he moved his right leg to the side, he stiffened the muscles then kicked the creature, the force of his kick made it fall down the stairs and stop near the table.

Leon watched the creature for a second, to make sure it won't get up. "Die already."

Though the creature stood up again, and raised it arm. Once again Leon fired at it head, twice, making it tremble and back away a little. "You just won't give up." Leon said in an obvious annoyance. He holstered his Wing-Shooter and his hand took another large gun from his back.

Blaser 93 Tactical Sniper Rifle. He ran upstairs in the left side of the large hall and stood in front of the railing, focusing his view through the scope.

He could see the creature's head perfectly. "This might hurt a little." he said and fired. A low screech came out of it, and the thing continued to shrink in size until a puddle of blood was all that was left of it.

The grip in his gun loosened, his hands hold onto the railing as he sank on his knees, he could feel his legs are shaking and couldn't hold his weight, not now.

Leon glanced toward the wall the creature shot its projectiles toward. He shined his flashlight toward the wall to see several white spikes implanted on the wall. What was odd though was the shape of the spikes. Then it struck him. The creature that just attacked him used it's skeleton to be ejected out like a weapon. Freaky but he saw worse.

He took out the radio from his front pocket and called. "Jill do you read me?" trying hard to hide the signs of pain in his voice.

...

...

"Leon?" she answered after a moment of silence. "Where are you?"

He swallowed hard and replied. "It looks like I'm in the guest cabins, how are you holding up?"

"I found a survivor, the B.O.W got her though."

'A survivor.' Leon thought about for a moment, remembering what he heard near the stairs. 'What in the world is going on here? Is there someone with us?'

"Who was she?" he asked.

...

"I'm still trying to piece that together." Jill answered and her voice appeared to be worried." I found a blue file in her suitcase... it speak of the FBC again, they're involved in this, the file mention Jack Norman, remember the name?"

Leon pursed his lips, for he wasn't surprise more leads to the FBC are found.

"Yeah, it is look like this mess revolves around him. I'll try to find my way to you, be careful." he said.

"Roger. I'll go back and help Chris."

With that Leon closed the radio and put it back on his pocket.

"What else you got for me." Leon joked to himself while calling out the dangers of the Queen Zenobia.

He took back his gun and forced himself up and move to the other side. Wishing nothing more than to lay down again, and close his eyes; have a moment to recover from the pain.

The sound of someone singing echoed through the speakers in the hall.

singing a lyrics he knew all too well.

"Traveler of the great divides  
Vagrant on a path to life.'

He lowered his gun, listening, as a certain memory returned to him, of two happy novice agents sitting in the bar drinking.

."That song!?... who's doing this?"

 **Thank you for reading, reviews are always appreciated**


	9. Chapter 8 Double Mystery Part 1

**Chapter 8. "Double Mystery Part 1."**

One dark blue boot took a step forward and into a small puddle that splashed against it. Jill cursed inwardly as the noise seemed to echo through the ship for eternity, and paused, trying to listen for anything else, anything that could be moving in reaction to that small sound. The gentle howl of wind through the halls was all that greeted her. Jill narrowed her eyes and began to move forward once again, on high alert for any potential threats.

' _Good thing I'm on a boat for a change, not much chance of reanimated dogs coming at me here_ … _I hope.'_ Jill shuddered at the thought of running into a zombie fish dog thing in the cramped confines of a ship, but quickly shook it off and continued to make her way back to the workers room, holding herself back from running like she is having a panic attack.

This reminded her so much of the old times, the two of them will always look after each other no matter what. She walked carefully through the dark room whispering. 'This's our fate my dear partner, I wonder how long we'll keep doing this.' She asked herself. Knowing the various answers she told herself, half of them were lies usually to herself.

To her luck the way back was relatively silent and peaceful... apart from a rat that mistook her boot for food and wouldn't leave her alone until she finally found her way back to the stairs, and he decided she was too much trouble to bother.

Jill's ears caught the sound of movement; something heavy and metallic. She hold the railing and went down as quiet as possible, her breath caught in her throat, afraid to make the slightest sound and give away her location.

The door to the hall was half opened, she stood behind the door and listened, though silence welcomed her. With every bit of the door's movement, more of her flashlight beamed in. The usual view of scattered junk didn't surprise her.

'You know what? Screw it!'

Jill barged through the door, gun ready in her hand but she couldn't see anything out of place or figure lurking in a corner.

"What's going on here?" She put her finger in her ear and called. "Leon come in?"

...

"Is everything alright on your end?" His voice didn't sound as calm as before.

"We're being watched by someone." Jill said and took the key out of her pocket and start tugging the lock. The strap to her MP5k at her shoulder felt as if was loosened as well.

"I think so too."

She spent a moment to stop fiddling with the door and gently pressed the eye slit open. There in the center of the room was a figure in dim lighting hunched over. Completely still and didn't hear the noise but didn't react to the sound behind it at all.

'No, No, No!' Jill mentally chanted to herself.

At last the door was unlocked, without hesitation she ran inside. "Chris!"

Her instincts were screaming that something wasn't right. Chris didn't move an inch and something about him, she couldn't place. Her hand grazed his shoulder, and the sudden shake has made the head fall on the ground.

This was just a doll to make her open this room. "What is this? Why?" In the wall in front of her was Veltro's flag stained with blood. The greyhound looking over room and stared directly back at Jill.

A sound of a hissing sound startled her. She immediately lowered her pistol and drew her MP5k in case for any giant snakes. It came to her surprise that it was gas spreading into the room. The smell and taste was completely bitter as her vision started to blur.

She covered her mouth while desperately trying to escape the room, but her knees weakened all of her senses seems to leave her slowly as she hit the ground.

The heavy metallic sound came again, and she could see a figure coming toward her. "It's time you learn the truth, Miss Valentine." That was the last thing she heard and she drifted off into a blackened void.

* * *

Leon forced himself to look through corpses he found piled in the corner of a small hallway for anything... or anyone useful in his quest for answers, after that he went through a room designed like a small museum.

Each time he moved, his left thigh and right ankle flared in a slow and bitter burning sensation. He must have pulled a muscle earlier… He ignored the cramps in his legs as he picked up the Genesis tool and begin analyzing. He didn't know much about what to expect to find from this thing, although anything that could help the investigation is good enough for him.

Still he couldn't help but to remember the time he looked for Ashley, that thing who regenerated itself and his weak parts couldn't be found easily.

He took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to push that terrible memory aside, trying to forget about the incident that had taken normal life from an innocent girl, because of Krauser and how he corrupted himself. Then in the end, he would help such a cult. It didn't matter anymore.

 _'Maybe I should give her a call, someday.'_ Leon thought as the green screen showed nothing useful for him.

When he heard a sudden heavy movement behind him, he senses kicked in and he returned to the end of the hallway but there was nothing different there, the door are still the same.

"Leon come in?" Jill's voice buzzed.

He brought his index finger to his left ear. "Is everything alright on your end?"

"We're been watched by someone."

"I think so too." Leon replied as he checked his surroundings again.

He holstered the tool and continued in to the front where he could see another wooden door, it led him to more doors in the other side and railing in the middle. The whole place was decorated like a nice apartment, it made him wonder what's it must be like to travel in such a fancy ship.

The thought were cut short as another bloated and horribly mutated corpse emerged into his sight. He rolled his eyes and took out the rifle. "I'm really sick of you." Leon stated as he focused his aim.

Then he felt a strong grip from behind, lift him off the ground. He never wished to be forced to do this, but he had no other choice.

With his legs he kicked the creature's face, taking the chance to rotate to face it, he brought himself up its shoulder and put three rifle bullets in its head. The trembling of the creature gave him the chance to move forward and jump on the other creature, and he did the same with a bullet through the head and he leaped down to the ground.

He stood there for several seconds until he made sure these things are dead.

Leon went through the door in the left side, and it revealed a bathroom. The water ran into the sink. With a sigh he allowed his hands to feel the cold water then he washed his face twice.

Another voice appeared, this time it was right outside of the bathroom.

"Bring...her."

Carefully he put his ear on the door listening. "Put her in the room and lock the door."

"Roger, leave Kennedy to me."

"Why are you so into him like this?"

"None of your business."

Leon could feel his breath hitch on his throat, the voice he heard was way too familiar, but he couldn't place to who it belonged. It took the two mysteries figures few seconds of whispering, and Leon heard the door close behind them at last.

"Jill do you read me?"

Silence was the answer he got. "Damn it!" In a hurry he left the bathroom and ran toward the door right in front of him.

It led to another small hallway, same decoration as outside and he could see two more creatures trembling in there. "For the love of god." Annoyed, Leon took out a grenade out of his pocket and rolled it toward the creatures.

A loud explosion echoed-followed by the sound of Leon's feet pounding against the deck as he raced to the other side, where there was a door locked with a padlock. Without hesitation he took his wing-shooter out and fired multiple times, though the lock would not budge.

"Put your hands where I can see them."

He felt a the cold metal pointing directly at his back. "Sorry." he chuckled. "Following orders from a stranger isn't exactly my style."

"Where is Jill?" his voice is cold and dangerous.

The masked figure laughed, just a way to provoke him even more. "After all this time, You haven't changed. Don't worry your little friend is fine." He scoffed at Leon. "Enjoy your time here because you'll never leave this ship." with that the figure ran to the other side of the hallway.

"Wait!" Leon shouted and tried to chase after him, when the pain returned again making him crumble on his knees. In his movement, Leon fired a bullet for it spark along the metal wall.

His breathing sounded like someone about to choke and die. Again he tried to call. "Jill, answer me."

"Leon." the answer came after a seconds.

"Where are you?"

"A room somewhere, the door is locked. I don't have any of my gear."

Leon bite his lip and continued talking. "Tell me if you can hear this." and raised his gun to the ceiling and he fired one bullet.

"Is that you?" Jill asked.

"Great then I'm right outside the room, can you open the door? what happened to Chris?"

"...No, it is electric lock. That room was just a trap I cannot believe it."

Jill was locked in a room with a king-size bed and a T.V. in the front, she searched all over the place for anything to help her open the door but there was nothing even useful for her weapons. The door of the bathroom was open, and strong smell was coming out of it. "I'll look for something." she spoke to Leon. It was clear that there wasn't anything of note that could be in any particular use to her. There was an old dresser, bed and an entertainment center. The entertainment center was just another dresser but it didn't stop her from checking the drawers to see if she could find anything useful.

Jill spent several moments searching but couldn't find anything of note. Besides a box of pistol bullets and it was completely empty… 'go figure.'

She glanced around the room again and knew of the bathroom she didn't think much of it. Of course, Jill mentally shrugged to herself as she slowly paced inside.

The place was small, she could see the bath top is filled with dark liquid. 'Disgusting.' she thought and forced herself to look for the drain and open it. There she found in the middle of the rusted top, a screwdriver. Her lips curled into a smile.' this should help.'

In her way out a bloated corpse barged out from the closet. She sighed, and waited for it, screwdriver at the ready.

When the creature bent and tried to grab for her, she dodged and kicked it right to the T.V. "Enjoy the show." she whispered.

It took her a few seconds to be able to open the door and leave the room. "Survived the fall I see." she joked. Leon was on the ground with his back against the wall.

Though she noticed that his eyes were narrowed, and his jaw unusually taut. "Are you alright? I have something that might help you."

She searched through her pocket and took out the pain killer she found in the locker.

"Thanks." she could see his hands are trembling.

"Why don't you rest inside that room, I'll go look for my weapons and come back to you."

"No." He protested. "This ship is crawling with those things. I'll be fine."

Jill knit one's brows. "Hey, there are two things that happen with pride. Either you swallow it or you choke on it. Stay here and try to reach HQ."

"Fine." Leon chuckled and swallowed two pills. "My last girlfriend was big into choking me anyhow, I kinda started to enjoy it before she turned into a zombie." he said and pushed himself up on his feet.

With a sigh, Jill followed him as he led her back to the dinner hall, in silence, neither of them seemed to desire small talk at the moment, though she did ponder asking him if what he said about his girlfriend was true... and if so then how the hell did he get a girlfriend in the first place with an attitude like that!? But she refrained.

When they were down the stairs Jill decided she just had to break the silence. "What made you leave a peaceful life for this outfit?" she asked.

"Nothing to it. I enjoy my job. I get to meet plenty of interesting people, the nice kind to the crazy. The pay isn't bad either..." Leon checked a corner with his gun. "Plus I get free dental. What about you?"

She sighed and turned away from him toward the door. "I want to help to raise awareness of Bio-Terrorism, after all the horror I saw I don't wish for anyone to ever experience it. That's why I joined Clive O'Brian and Chris to form the B.S.A.A."

She opened the door to the next hallway and saw there was a double door in the right side.

"Wait, let me go first." he pushed her back and went to the door.

"I can dodge and take care of myself you know." Annoyed she followed behind.

"Hey, there are two things that happen with pride. Either you swallow it or you choke on it." he said and kicked the door open.

The room was a wide library, the shelves were filled of dusty books. Leon came in first observing their surroundings.

It took Jill a moment to fully realize what had he done all this time."You are a stubborn Smart-ass, you now that right?" she said in an obviously angry voice while she crossed her arms.

"I'll take that as a compliment." He said and pushed her behind as a corps came crawling from an half empty shelf.

Leon took his rifle and aimed, focusing the scope' view directly at its head." I'm ready for you." he said.

 **Thank you for reading.. Reviews are always appreciated.**


	10. Chapter 9 Double Mystery Part 2

**Note, a certain agent is changed, I'm aware of the way she is in the game.**

 **Chapter 9. "Double mystery part 2."**

 **5:12 P.M.**

The snow was shining and transformed the landscape making it a magical land full of wonder and undiscovered mysteries. The white flakes breezed and danced in the wind as two sets of heavy boots crunched the snow. A brunette woman stopped and held her knees, they've been walking nonstop for several hours and she started to feel cramps in her legs. Numerous detours happen do that to a person.

The woman wore a yellow-golden jacket and a big hat of the same color along with a light-purple pants. She rubbed her fingers together and exhaled on them. Nothing she truly couldn't handle but is a huge hassle in her mind. At her back as a PSG1 Sniper Rifle and a MP5. Strapped to her coat, were several clips of ammunition which annoyed her from having it bounce off of her on every step.

"Slow down, Chris." She pleaded to her partner who is ahead of her. The woman's voice is mixed between tiredness and tired breaths.

"We're almost there, Jessica." A calm muscular voice responded to her as he turned forward again to move.

"I certainly hope so, my feet are killing me." Jessica followed him through the cold-magical mountain road. The person she referred to was her newly currently assigned partner. In preparation for the mission, he dressed in the standard gear the B.S.A.A. offered and distributed the weight all around his body. He even packed some ammo for Jessica's sniper rifle. With double layers of pants, shirts, and socks, he knew he could tolerate the weather as long as he would have to.

Their guns ready and their fingers bent at the triggers, for there is no saying of what they could find here in this place.

"Our source indicates the camp is on the far side of this peak." Chris checked the PDA at his wrist. The preset coordinates seemed to show that they got rather close.

Jessica stopped in the middle of the path and tried to call again, to tell O'Brian of what they did so far but she couldn't reach anyone of the B.S.A.A.

'This is not good.' She thought and she jogged after Chris. "Maybe it's the weather!" She yelled. "I still can't make contact with HQ. Don't you think they'd be worried about us?"

Chris rotated his head to look at her. "Relax, you just keep trying until we reach the camp alright?"

Chris felt his body tremble, he could sense his bones are freezing making it hurt to run, the only thing he ever wished for right now is to go someplace warm and stay there for a while, but he have a job to do.

"Roger." Jessica answered.

It continued for another 2 hours before their peaceful walk was interrupted by a loud that felt like mountain round them trembled. The sound was clear that this wasn't some sort of echo but rather a roar from the sky above. Jessica was the one to turn around first then noticed something she didn't expect to see today… An airplane, on a downward path to the mountain. The time was 7:15 P.M.

The thick smoke mixed with the white weather was horrifying to the eyes of the agents. "Ah the plane, my god… it crashed." Jessica tightened the sling to her guns then ran toward the smoke, deep down thinking there might be survivors who could need help.

"Careful Jessica." Chris urged her to wait for him.

It took both of them a few minutes until they finally reached the crash site. "Jesus," Jessica stood on the high land which overlooked the crash site. "No one could have lived through that."

Chris came in and the sight down made him speechless. Several grey pieces of the hull scattered all over the hill side. It looked like the plant must have attempted for a crash landing but something happened for it split open. The contents of the inside spilled out which just gave Chris a mental picture of a person being torn apart. He knew enough to make such a comparison. Half of the plane was gone while the back of it was burning, many parts of the plane were all over the place.

'Whoa.' he swallowed a lump in his throat and hold Jessica's hand, it was his way to show support. "We have to investigate. Let me know if you find anything." Chris shook his head to have an excuse to possibly check for survivors.

Jessica's gaze turned to him, for a moment she looked at his dazzling brown-eyes. The concern in them were unmistakable and nodded to the same sentiment. "Okay." She muttered. The ledge the both of them were at didn't seem that bad. Jessica leaned down then jumped with so much determination to be the best partner she could. The fall was only 4 feet.

With a Genesis tool in hand, Jessica started to scan the ruins. Shit happens, and just maybe, there could be someone here that could need their help.

It was an undeniable fact after all the time she spent working for the B.S.A.A. Jessica didn't think much of her co-workers. Chris just so happened to be enigma to what she was normally used to, though he always seems to be focused on work and only work.

It's been four months since Jessica met the hard boiled man… On the third month she became enamored with him… She met Chris Redfield in the breakroom back in Headquarters. Apparently not to many people in the office building took a liking to her. Well, a certain part of the population did, but not in the way Jessica preferred. The beating eyes of the women faculty members.

Then just one day in the break room, Jessica sat at an isolated table eating unfulfilling meals. That was what the social order dictated her life to be like. She recalled the first thing he ever said to her.

"Do you want a soda?"

Naturally, her response was no. Maybe it was just a test for Jessica to fail… then the next line of what Chris said to her stuck with her ever since her transfer to the new B.S.A.A. Headquarters.

"Really?" Chris chuckled at her. "Okay then."

Jessica thought he was just another office asshole like many others. However…

"It's just, you look miserable. My mistake." Chris shrugged then walked off to his office with his lunch in hand.

Jessica didn't know what to think of Chris Redfield. A week later, she was assigned to be his new partner. Her initial assumptions weren't far off. The man was a workaholic and for some reason… she grew to like him. A real person that didn't have any ulterior motive meant toward her.

Someone that really took her interest and it just adjusted over time. Obviously, Jessica was completely drawn to Chris…

And thus she didn't had the courage to tell him how she felt, and what hurt her the most was the way he treated Jill. The two of them seemed to be a great partners. In what Jessica could understand in the office space, is that it could be considered to be something _less than professional_. Though she didn't lose hope to talk to him more, be close to him and try to make him see her.

Her scanner made her find a box of ammo behind the tail of the plane, somehow survived the crash, she took out her combat knife and break through it. It was pistol ammo along with rifle ammo as well. "Chris over here."

Chris was busy on his own, he opened the door to the pilot place and a body fall like he was directly at the door. Chris scanned the body carefully for anything useful and he found a clipboard for the flight plan. 'The manifest should give us a lead to work with.' He thought.

"Chris come on." Jessica called out.

He checked his weapons and made sure they're loaded, he checked the barrel for his shotgun and found he has only two shells inside.

Annoyed by his sloppiness he loaded it with five more shells.

"On my way." He answered and ran after his partner. The moment he found her, his PDA rang.

"We have contact again?" Chris took it out of his rear pocket and answered with a spare satellite phone.

A dark toned woman appeared in the small screen. "You're Hunnigan, right?" He asked confused. Jessica let go of what she was doing and came next to him to see.

"Yes, thank god I was able to contact you at last. Where are you?"

Chris and Jessica exchanged confused looks. "We're at the mountains, going according to plan." Jessica said.

Hunnigan's eyes changed in mere seconds. "What? How were you..." the screen started to blur and her voice was dying.

"Hunnigan come in damn it, what's going on." Chris screamed, but the contact was lost again.

"Chris come on," Jessica urged him to move. "The sooner we find the camp the better, we might be able to contact them again."

With sigh Chris led her to the have open path to inside a mine. The steel was heavy, but with the strength of both of them, they were able to go inside.

The loud sound caused an echo inside and it followed with a creepy howl in the distance. Both of them prepared their weapons and went through the path carefully. "I hate wolves." Jessica groaned. "Or this is the sound of dogs?"

"Stay focused." Chris said and jumped down. They found them self in front of two paths to go when out of nowhere a large wolf jumped at them. Chris was first to recover and he fired with his pistol at the dog, though it was hard to focus on it, the wolf was moving everywhere.

At last the wolf stood for moment howling, like he calling. Chris took the chance and fired multiple times until it lay down lifeless. Chris came closer to see the creature closer. The wolf has a grey-black skin, around the stomach, the rib cage and inner organs were visible. Several bits of flesh barely hung on to the bones.

"They're infected." Jessica disgusted by the sight. Chris observed their surroundings for anything strange, when Jessica decide to talk about something been eating her for a time.

"So...Jill was it?" Jessica asked.

"Was what? Stay focused." Chris replied sharply. There wasn't even any form of hesitation in his voice either. Jessica grimaced as she pursed her lips. The workaholic types, they have really poor perception skills.

"She was your partner from before right?"

Chris holstered his pistol and replace it with his shotgun. "Yeah, my partner from before. What about it?"

It wasn't new for him, some people will ask about Jill and what they are and this must be with Jessica is looking for. Eventually, his older co-workers stopped asking him about it. The truth is, he himself isn't sure what they were, for long time they will make each other laugh and enjoy each other's company, be the best help during that fateful mission in the mansion.

She'll open up to him, and he'll do the same. Needless to say, many were disappointed to learn that the two weren't involved romantically, never. Not it was their business anyway. He knew he had a job to do, after she moved in with him the confusion grow more, and he didn't have much time to settle his true feelings about his partner.

Still he knew he'll always look after her in the darkest moments. Another howl echoed in the mine, but this time multiple howls.

Chris held her hand again and said. "Run."

In a hurry they went through the mines, dodging wolves' attacks as much as possible, it made them lose half of their ammo.

Until they reached their destination at last. Jessica used a scope to check the place and see if what they thought is true.

"This is forkball. Do you read?" O'Brian's voice buzzed.

"Chris here, I read you sir."

"Are you alright? Where are you?" O'Brian asked.

"The interference here killed our communication. We're at Walkoinen Mokki Airport." Jessica spoke up.

"Damn it, it was all a set up." his voice appeared to be mixed with worry and anger.

"What do you mean?" Chris asked.

"I sent Jill and Leon to the Mediterranean on faulty intel. And now we've lost contact with them."

Jessica interrupted and spoke. "O'Brian, you're not going to like this. We found Veltro crest. Then the setup that got Leon and Jill it was all..."

"Yeah, I'd almost guarantee it." Clive placed his hand over his mouth as he started to think critically for the situation.

"O'Brian, we'll go after Leon and Jill. I hope that is not a problem." Chris said

"Not at all."

Jessica immediately noticed the newfound frustration paint over Chris' expression. In the very moment the mention of Jill been in trouble. Deep down she wondered what this could all mean. Sure, she understood their previous history but he treated Jill formally and he refused anything more than that… Jessica glanced to the floor as several other possible scenarios tested themselves in her mind. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, let's go we have no time to waste." Chris' lips no long frowned but the glint in his eyes disappeared when a new objective presented itself.

…

The creature trembled and lay on the ground groaning, "Run." Leon screamed and ran in front of Jill between the shelves of the large library. At last they were in an empty small hall, it looks similar to where she was locked up. The room ahead of them has a steel door, unlike the others.

'It is too obvious.' Leon thought and he was correct, through the bars Jill saw her weapons.

"Here they are. We go on three?" Jill prepared herself.

Leon bit his lip and agreed. "One...two...three." Together they kicked the door open and it fell in the ground.

Jill went inside while Leon stood outside looking over any danger lurking nearby. "Who do you think they are?" She inquired.

"I don't know, one of them somehow I recognized his voice, but I cannot tell who is he exactly." Leon stated.

"We have to find out what the hell is going here!? and where is the missing agents?" She replied as she put own the belt for the weapons."It's going to take awhile."

"Right, I think we can try to contact HQ in the bridge. Let's go."

On their way back to the other hall, they fought and cleaned the libraries from the corpses for good, until they reached the dinner hall. Another voice appeared through the speaker singing. A song like a stab through his heart, he remembered that day very clearly.

 **He was sick and sore, all of this was like a dream to him, Ashley was finally home safe and sound, but there is one thing he needed to deal with.** **The secret service reunited Ashley with her father the moment they returned.**

 **Slowly he opened the door to his office and immediately he felt someone jump at him screaming. "Leon thank god you're alright." It was Amy, Mike's niece, her red hair was beautifully** **loose at** **her shoulders.**

 **She pulled back to look at him, "Where is my uncle?" She asked though the look in his eyes** **then immediately noticed** **something was not right.**

 **"Leon?" she asked fearfully. For she could see the hint of tears in the corner of his eyes.**

 **"I don't know what happened." Was the only thing he could allow himself to say to Amy. Somewhere in the city he returned to, was a bottle of whiskey with Leon's name written all over it. He brushed past Amy without even giving her a second glance. It was too painful, but for whom… it was too difficult to tell.**

 **Hunnigan came forward and told her everything that happened in** **Spain** **. Once she finished** **her debriefing, Leon finally looked at Amy. The glimpse in Amy's face just tore something inside…**

 **"You promised you two will always look after each other, you promised me.** **How could you allow something like this to happen, LEON!?" Amy bawled and broke down on the floor in front of him. Hunnigan and several agents circled around the young 15 year old girl. With every tear she shed, it was another bottle that introduced itself to the** _ **Returning Hero**_ **.**

"Hello..." Jill yelled again, for they had went through the door. "Are you really daydreaming mister?"

He was still staring down at the ground and at his shoes, but his gaze had gone distant, as if he is drifting to another time. "A while ago, I returned from Spain. I had to break the heart of young girl about the news of some very special to her…"

Jill lowered her gun in surprise, 'is he really going to open up to me right now?' she thought and listened carefully to his words.

"Her name is Amy, she is just 15 years old. I promised her we'll take care of each other and... all that remained was a charred corpse."

For the first time since they started working together, his eyes showed so much emotions, sadness-regret, and pain.

"You see this cult caused me so much trouble, I barely made it alive out of the underground to look for Ashley. I called for backup because of the large number of armed hostels, they were all over the place. I had a friend. And that damn pilot came out to help me with his helicopter, he cleaned most of the place for me and then..." he couldn't finish the sentence, and he looked away from her. "That song, whoever is watching us he is cruel. That much I do know." Leon looked at Jill with as his blood started to boil.

Jill came closer and touched his hand gently, "I'm sorry for your loss, but this isn't the time for this discussion. I'll hold this for later."

Leon looked back at her in silence just looking at her eyes. Jill went on. "You know what Miss Elizabeth would say? Stop blaming yourself over things you have no control over. Move on and start rebuilding the pieces."

"You really are looking up to her?" he said with a smile.

"Yes, she is my hero for real." With that they continued upstairs and made their way back to the small hall.

They noticed the change in the place, for one the padlock on the door in front of the room she was in, is broken like someone went through it.

Leon prepared his wing shooter and opened the door, gun first then he went inside.

The place had nothing but a working elevator. "Let's go." Jill ran inside.

"Take us to the bridge hurry." Leon said closely behind.

To their luck the door closed and the elevator took them to a dark corridor. Once again they could hear the sound of the ocean outside but it appears to be the storm is over at last. The two agents made their way quietly, wary of the ears of the figures, Jill looked over the corners searching if there is cameras or anything else.

The door at the end of the corridor led them to a small room with lockers, most of them their doors were broken, and they could only find first aid kit, Leon took it and hid it for later... in emergencies.

The other had led them to door in the front with a small window." The bridge is over there hurry." Jill ran and went through before him.

Directly she went through the machines, only to discover everything is broken and there is nothing much she could do to call.

"Come over here and..." She stopped after she felt the cold metal of a gun at the back of her head.

"Stand aside Miss Valentine." A deep voice spoke, but it was cut out with the sound of shooting and she heard the sound of the gun his the metal ground. Jill looked up and raised her weapon.

Leon broke away from Jill as he clearly crossed her line of fire. Just hearing those tunes again set him off the edge he broke all the rules to his experience and charged headfirst at the figure. The two locked arms and the figure before him reversed his arm then punched Leon in his sternum. From there, the figure stepped back for Leon to lift his right leg the swipe the air in front of him. The figure responded by doing something similar with his left leg. Both of them kicked each of on their sides.

During the entire confrontation Jill couldn't line up a proper shot without the risk of possibly getting Leon shot in the process.

Leon flicked his wrist aimed at the forehead of the figure. He caught it then and the magazine ejected from Leon's Wing Shooter. From there, the gun was knocked out of Leon's hand. From there, the figure dropped his feet that nearly caught Leon's feet. They locked arms at their shoulders and Leon kicked his left leg forward to hopefully get the upper hand at his opponent. From there, the figure caught on to what Leon planned then twisted his arm so that he could get Leon to let go. The moment he did, the figure shoved Leon away as he disarmed the figure. Once they were apart, Jill had a clear shot now.

"Drop you weapon." Leon spoke dangerously then pulled the barrel back then took the figure's weapon apart.

"Who are you?" Jill asked.

"Hold on!?" Leon interrupted,"I think I know you..."

 **Thank you for reading, reviews are always appreciated.**

 **It is been awhile I didn't credit my friend The95will, thank you so much. Another special thanks to The Grinning Psychopath.**


	11. Chapter 10 Ghosts of Veltro

**Special thanks to the smiling star, your review made me happy :) thank you for your support and I wish you best of luck.**

 **I'm sorry for anyone I couldn't answer, I was busy and I lost my account for a time.**

 **Chapter 10. "Ghosts of Veltro."**

"I think I've seen you before." Leon said. The figure slowly stood on his feet.

He was tall and had ginger curly hair, he wore a blue vest and a white-long sleeved shirt under it with a black pants. Leon looked to his right then nodded to someone he knew. Even for his size, Leon stood almost a forehead shorter than the other. A small metal hatchet handle shined in the dim light. "Raymond right?"

"DSO," he said with a chuckle. "You're little late don't you think?"

Jill came closer to him, still focusing her gun on him. "What's the FBC is doing here?" she whispered. Though Raymond looked directly in her eyes and laughed, to provoke her even more, a kick to his stomach followed.

Raymond stepped back, and held the railing behind him

Leon shook his head sadly. "Answer the question."

"I don't have to answer anything, DSO _agent_." he answered with a hint of a teasing in his voice, a tone reminded him of someone who got in his nerves, still he did what had to be done and helped her.

"You have no authority over this." Raymond went on.

Jill lowered her gun and sighed, they were wasting a precious time in this pointless conversation, obviously Raymond won't break and tell them why is he here.

"There is no time to fight, we've gotta-"she shouted, but Raymond Interrupted.

"Give it a rest Valentine. You don't even know why you're here or who you're fighting." Thus he took his gun from the ground, without paying much attention to them.

"Hey stop right there." Leon stated.

Raymond looked at Leon one last time, "Nothing will change, unless you get your hands dirty. Didn't Senator Kennedy teach you that?"

In immediate response, Leon grimaced then looked away.

Raymond walked away from them, to down the stairs. There was no response from Leon and his footsteps just echoed in the hall.

An awkward silence filled the room. "So the FBC is on this ship too, what's going on here." Jill wondered.

Leon holstered his Wing-Shooter, and cocked his head for her to follow him. "We're operating without any intelligence." he stated. "Our best course of actions now is to search this ship for answers. Not that I relish the idea."

Together they went down the stairs, confused and wary, what was supposed to be a rescue mission turned out more then what they expected.

The hallway down had led them to an elevator to the front, they went through the side, and in the wall there was a small photos hanged there. Most of which happen to be scenic landscapes of different locations around the world. Below the painting down under them there was two plates decorated with curves and lines. The lines formed various shapes and animals. Three plates formed a triangle and are obviously decorative pieces.

The center plate wasn't a series of random lines but instead, a series of orange colored eyes. Several of the curving were different and were of different shading. On inspection, they looked like a series of long necks and a multi-headed creature stared back. Jill took an elective in college of world mythologies and the creature looked like a Naga or Hydra.

'Strange.' Jill thought to herself.

"Back in the hallway, I encountered someone, he was standing directly behind me...and he wasn't Raymond I'm sure of it now." Leon whispered.

As he observed the other side of the hallway for anything, and they were faced with two doors, a steel one in the left and a wooden one in the right. "Do you think this person is Raymond's partner?" she asked.

"No clue. It bugs me on how little we know." he took a breath and went to the wooden door.

"If only we could reach HQ, or Hunnigan." Jill gently pushed a door open and it revealed what seemed to be a boardroom.

There was a large table in the middle and chairs in both sides. Leon went straight for the unorganized books and files. While Jill went to search the side in front of the windows, something shiny caught her attention, stuck in the side of the window.

Carefully she touched it and tried to pull it out. 'Come on.' she thought. There was a big chance, the small object will be pulled inside for good.

Several books were moved around and one of them spilled out a series of pages. Leon didn't bother to clean it up but it didn't stop him from skimming the documents. Nothing was of any use since it just memos and manifests for the ship since years before. Anything less than a year ago hasn't been documented. In other words, still nothing to qualify as intelligence. Leon frowned then continued his search.

It took Jill a moment to finally be able to get it out. "Yes," she said raising her voice for Leon to hear. "I found a key."

"Nothing useful here," Leon said and throw the files on the ground. "Let's move."

The pair followed the other end of the hallway to the steel door, to their luck the key Jill found fits the door.

The room there was a small office, in the middle there was a small table and four couches in both sides. There is wooden shelves covering the desk, on the chair they could see an obvious shadow of someone.

"Careful." Jill whispered. Leon went to the desk alone.

Jill behind the table, she saw a map and written in the right corner in a large bolded text, **Queen Zenobia**. "This should help us, I found the map." She pulled out the thumbtacks and noticed that the map has been folded before.

In a hurry she pulled it from the frame and spread it on the table. Leon came from behind the shelf, and look of disgust is obvious in his eyes. "What did you find there?"

"A corpse, nothing was on him." he shook his head, and focused on the map. He left out the detail of the maggots that wormed around his abdomen.

"So we're right here." Jill said and pointed at a spot in the map. She recalled the shape of the previous rooms to make an educated assumption.

"Look over here," Leon said and pointed with his index finger at a cylinder shaped area. "According to the information, there should be an emergency communication room if we go through there."

"Yeah, we got to go back to the dining hall, maybe the key I have will open the door there." Jill folded the map and put it in her belt.

They went out of the room and down the hall, moving quickly. Once they were back up in the bridge where they found another FBC agent.

"Raymond." she said, her voice echoing in the deathly silent place, and she went through the locker room.

"You heard that name before?" Leon asked, following behind.

"I think my former partner told me about him." she replied.

"Your former partner was an FBC member?"

"Yeah."

To their luck the way back to the dining hall was peaceful, they didn't encounter any corpses. In the other side of the hall, there was a door locked with a sliding gate. After a brief consultation with their map, Jill took the key out and went for the door.

After a seconds of tugging on the lock, she opened the gate. "Great." they noticed the double doors' hinges were loosened. As if something gave a good amount of brute force to be opened. Eventually it broke and the door functioned as it normally would. Jill didn't like it.

Leon walked to his left and Jill took the right so their backs were against walls. At the same time, Jill and Leon opened their perspective doors then aimed into the next area. Once they did, an enchanting golden hall appeared before them.

The cylinder shaped hall had a large golden clock in the front of the stairs, though there was no chairs or anything around the other doors. "Impressive." Leon said as he stood in awe of the beauty before him.

"It's like an Oprah house here." Jill added.

Recalling the task at hand, Leon shook his head. "If I'm not mistaken, the emergency communication room is over there." Leon said and went through the right path, directly behind the large clock tower.

But like the previous one, the door was locked with sliding gate. Leon heaved a long annoyed sigh. "Go figure."

Jill knelt down and examined the lock. A pair of lock picks were taken out of her lower back. Once she held them in front of her. Jill sighed as well.

"What is it?"

"My lock pick broke. I think it happened when I came across one of those Ooze things." Jill stood up. "I must have been caught up in the moment and didn't notice when they broke."

"Got any spares?"

"Outside at the tugboat but we're too far to retrieve them." Jill pointed out as she looked over the map. It would be a major waste of time to do so as well.

Leon shook his head in slight frustration. Then he looked to the ground and noticed a piece of paper. He frowned at it then picked it up. It was a note to the passengers of the ship.

 **Come to the Permenade deck. We're evacuating there. Stay Safe. –Communication's Officer Eric Carmine.**

"I think this could be our best bet. Could be a key and maybe there are survivors there too." Leon showed Jill.

She looked over the map again. "It isn't far from where we are. Let's go."

In a slow pace, they went down the stairs observing their surroundings, for anything. Jill was about to go for the door when she felt Leon's hand stop her. "Wait." he murmured. She rotated her head to meet his wary eyes. "Something's here."

Jill carefully listened, she wasn't sure if there is a sound or it is just the hammer of her heart, though she couldn't see anything unusual in the place.

"Watch it." she heard Leon shout, everything went very quickly for her to response, Leon wrapped his arms around her and jumped to the side. Down the staircase they went and both landed on their sides. Leon grunted as he raised his Wing Shooter.

She bit her lip in pain then looked at where they jumped from. Something must have been there for Leon to want to dodge like that. If this was a joke however, he'll have a bullet in him.

"Sorry," he whispered and pulled himself up. Jill looked to the spot where they were standing and she saw a large weird looking Parasites, they had something sharp coming from what appeared to be their mouth, and they were moving quickly around the stairs.

"What is that?" she asked as she stood up.

Leon took his rifle and focused his view up, in the third floor of the hall. It was close enough that he could see the movement of the creature's clothes, the strange rippling organ.

Another thing was fired at them, it was too fast and Leon stumbled backward. He fired upward into what he assumed where the thing stood at. He didn't know how to explain it but he somehow knew it was a threat.

"Come on, it's too high up." Jill urged him to run to the double door. "We could deal with it later."

"You two are not going anywhere." a voice echoed in the hall, a loud sound of a breeze of air followed, as if something fell from above.

Jill swiftly took her gun and spun around. There in front of the door there was a man covering his face with a gas mask, but his arm was large, too large for a human and it had what was like a sharp knife instead of fingers. The left shoulder was slanted and looked in disproportion with the right shoulder. Just the shape unsettled her.

The right side of his body, the other arm appeared horribly burned. It appeared to have been welted and the skin was obviously of a darker color. All over it, was red skin and black patches and it looked as if the skin was flaking. Underneath, several gleaming orange bits of skin were spread about amongst the black patches. It was obvious that the arm didn't heal properly. It was engulfed from third degree burns.

"It's been a while, hasn't it Leon?" It said and reveled his face.

Jill fired at the man twice, but he kept moving toward them like the bullets did nothing to him. "What're you waiting for?" she screamed at Leon who was frozen behind her with an unreadable expression.

In a hurry she took a grenade and tossed it. The green cylinder rolled over to the man, then it snickered at her. It reacted accordingly and kicked it far to the side, where it exploded. Jill felt the wind and vibration it caused.

Leon stood several feet away from Jill and still didn't move.

"Leon! What are you d-" Jill was cut off as the man sprinted to her then reversed kicked her at her shoulder.

Jill grunted then immediately leveled her pistol as she hit the ground. She fired several sporadic shots in the general direction she was thrown from. She clearly saw Leon wasn't in her line of fire. Jill tried to fire again, but she found her throat in the embrace of a hand. It tightened and felt herself heave for air. The grip only tightened.

Several sharp pinches manifested at her waist. Then came a wave of pain from there. Jill knew from experience that she was cut by something. Most likely by that blade arm.

She kicked and tried to free herself, but it was no use, her vision begin to blur.

It just took it's time to kill her. So Jill immediately knew this thing was toying with her. Her legs scrambled about in a last ditch effort as she forced herself to stay awake.

At last Leon came back to his senses and fired at the man multiple times, until it threw Jill away like she was just a pebble. "You bastard!" Leon said coldly pointing his rifle at his face. "You broke your oath, you betrayed me!"

Jill rolled around then slowly got herself back up. She rubbed her neck then saw Leon's face. The kind of expression suited for an enraged wolf. He had narrowed eyes and exposed fangs of fury.

Leon couldn't see that move coming, his blade-arm sliced his gun fast like a lightning. And it was turned into pieces all over the ground, too shocked to react he looked at the remains of his gun. "You know what really happened." Leon looked back at him, his eyes glistening with tears and his face was turning red.

The creature took a step forward and all Leon did was unleash his weapon. With every flash of the gun, Leon only grew angrier on every bullet. It was obvious he didn't care about conservation.

Jill didn't understand the situation but regained her composure. She got off the ground then used her knife and aimed for his arm, quickly she took three flash grenade and throw it in front of him. The man noticed it then shielded his eyes. The blade Jill threw bounced off his arm.

A blinding light made the man cover his face and stumble backwards. After several seconds the light was gone, and there was no sign of the two agents.

"I still owe you."

...

Leon was on his knees, while his back resting against the wall inside the dining hall. "I knew he suffered. I knew he did…"

Jill knelt down to his level. "All that metal and fire." Leon started to mutter to himself of stuff Jill couldn't understand.

Gently she put her hands on his shoulder. "I'm sorry Leon, but we have to move."

Jill know he was too fragile to move now, that man would clearly be on their tail. "Stay here, I'll be back." She made up her mind.

With that she went through the double door again, thinking of a plan to distract that man-thing, lead him away.

When the door closed, Leon noticed something in his left arm, his veins are abnormally visible.

His breath quickened as he took one of the silver plates on the table, he needed to see himself.

The reflection was his, but a red eyes stared back at him. "No," he whispered with so much fear. "No."

Panicked he searched his pockets for the medicine. He swallowed few pills with no water and leaned on the table, gasping for air.

"I'm sorry…" Leon rubbed his forehead.

 **Thank you for reading, reviews are always appreciated, I hope you like where this going so far.**

 **Happy early Christmas everybody :) and happy new year.**


	12. Chapter 11 Fear

**Chapter 11."Fear."**

"Come on, where are they?" Steven asked O'Brian, he shrugged at thought of what could happen. The sharply dressed man placed the nib of his left index finger at the edge of his chin then paced around in deep thought. His mind traveled in various directions and his anxious mind started to physically affect him.

"Relax Mr. Kennedy we're still attempting to contact them."

Quint and his partner worked at their desks in silence, everyone waited for them to say something. More specifically… Quint. Who by now did his absolute best while Keith was beside him for emotional support. Clive blinked and made sure not to shake his head then glanced down to the main floor toward Keith. Quint never turned away from his computer and Keith looked up to Clive then shrugged.

Steven closed his eyes for a moment and turned around, going up to the office. Clive subtly turned around to look at the Kennedys. The father walked away from his corner then walked around the room.

It also got some of the employees anxious as well.

Once Steven reached the top of the stairs, he were cautiously peering around the railing, searching for hope, someone could come to them with a good news.

His wife, Elizabeth caught up to Steven then placed her hand on his shoulder, he paused. "Lizzy, don't worry he can take care of himself, besides he's not alone."

"Oh yeah, you know what I think of the most right now? 30 fucking hours of labor, and the long years where we watched him grow up and join the academy, now look what happened to us? we haven't talked much for over seven years." She looked up at him, her cheek stained with tears. "We're losing him, I know you don't want to admit it Steve. He's in trouble now and I'm sure he doesn't want to see our faces in whatever the hell he is right now."

Steven took a seat next to her and held her hand. "Do you know who his partner is?" Elizabeth shook her head then wiped her tears. "Dick Valentine's daughter, she always pulled through from danger, and our boy will be no different."

Elizabeth knew her husband was worried too and only said that to comfort himself as much as her. Still though, it was one of the traits Steven possessed that she grew to love about him. With that, Elizabeth felt comfortable enough to calm herself down.

"Senator Kennedy, over here." Quint called out.

...

Leon ran through the door, he needed to catch her before she tried to take care of this alone. Once he was back at the hall he dropped to his knees and scurried to the side to observe the hall, his heart pounded and slowed down when there was nothing waiting for him. He checked again then saw Jill alone walk around on light footsteps then slowed down at a set of doors. She placed her back to it prepared to go through the double door.

"Jill wait." Leon beckoned. Leon gathered some strength to get back on his feet. He spent a moment to take a deep breath then sprinted down the stairs. "Don't you dare move without me."

Jill's lips curled into a smile, more like a smile of relief. "Excuse me for giving you some space." She remarked at his expense, he rolled his eyes at her as he caught up. She wanted to ask him what was going on.

Who's that man-thing they met before? She remembered Leon's reaction earlier and chose to stay silent. Mostly out of mutual respect from one professional to another.

She watched him move ahead for her toward the Promenade deck door. The golden door was gently pushed open as Jill entered first.

The other-side reviled a stone stairs, leading down to a garage door, the whole place was well-lit and it did made them wonder how the electricity could still be powered. So there still could be someone on the ship that turned it on in recent days or hours ago. Jill frowned at the thought and Leon walked to the next door in their way.

They went through the wooden door and through the small hallway. Right in the middle they could hear the echo of someone shouting. "MaY-dAy, thIs is tHe QueEen ZenObiA."

"Jill, you heard that right?" he asked then checked the gun's magazine. "Maybe it's the officer."

"Yes, there is a survivor! Let's go." she kicked the door at the end of the hall and carefully aimed her weapon, the voice seems to be getting louder there, a husky voice seems to be mixed with a weird-creepy tone.

It was strange. The deck itself didn't look like a deck at all. More of a shopping small shopping district that had a closed stores and a café right across from a small grilling restaurant. Several o of the stores had rubber shades and several table benches had umbrellas. All completely useless outside of comforting the passengers. The tiles of the floor spoke of different style to influence the onlooker to feel as if there were out on land, more specifically, like a small market out in Italy or some other European nation. It got the job done on that, but it didn't change that Jill needed to keep her guard up.

"Come on." Leon said, he turned to the garage door, he bent down and held unto the door it took them a moment to lift the door high enough to go through it. Jill helped him lift it up and the both of them dropped it once they positioned themselves on the opposite side of the wall.

"EmERgEnCy… MaY-dAy, thIs is tHe QueEen ZenObiA."

"The sound is from over there." Leon walked in front of her toward the room. They saw a door closed with crimson padlock, "Hold on!" Leon shouted and aimed at the lock.

Before he shot at it, Jill came in and tried to speak through the door. "Sir, calm down we're going to help you..." Still the man won't stop repeating the words. 'May-day this is the Queen Zenobia, emergency code number...' "Sir?"

Jill turned to look at him, her face is like she mouthed 'what the hell?'

Leon fired at the lock, to their surprise something broke through, Jill stumbled and walked backwards.

"What the..." Leon gasped and he went through the window behind him. It was that same large creature they had seen before, a large bulge of rotten flesh. It stumbled toward them as the engorged head of the person appeared to be featureless but clear enough to tell it had a face. The mouth opened and an elongated tongue dropped out as took a step forward while its huge size caused the body to jiggle. The best way to look at it was to think of it as a bloated watery corpse that held itself together somehow. All that was what they could describe before the right arm lifted up and reformed bone structures composed an organic chainsaw. The ligaments were used as the component to wire the jagged bones to be able to rotate freely.

"Don't tell me that's the Comms officer." Jill commented.

"Go, I'll cover you!" Leon opened fire. Jill walked backward for several steps as she reached the doorway of the room and called out to Leon to follow her. She took the time to cover his retreat and he sprinted down a narrow Bridgeway as he called out to Jill so she could fall back.

Jill went down the stairs, and went against the steel door in the front and aimed her gun waiting for the thing to come.

Leon jumped down over where she was standing, there he saw a bloated corpse emerge, it was standing in between him and the steel door where Jill was.

Leon didn't bother to shoot it, instead drawing his combat knife and charging towards it, worried that in the time that it'd take to aim and get off a good killing shot, that the monster that used to be the comm-officer might leap down fast and hack him apart.

The creature in front of him swung out its misshapen arm at him, and he ducked beneath it and to the side, shoving his knife up beneath the arm and driving the blade through its chin and up into its brain killing it damned near instantly.

He could hear the sound of the large creature coming down the stairs, he draw back his knife and ran. However, when he'd stabbed the monster, the knife'd wedged in place and the outer mucus of the creature caked the handle as Leon pulled the knife away. Leon cringed in disgust but was there by Jill's side before the frustrated, hungry cry of the large bulge could reach him.

"Shhttoopp ittt!" the creature cried shrilly, as they rained down yet more lead upon it. "immmm hooomaaannn!"

"Not on your best day bub!" Leon called, even as he sheathed his filthy knife, and fumbled for his backup weapon. _This oughta give the bastard something to think twice about!_ He snarled inwardly. And then his arm cramped up, and he could feel a surge within his body, and he knew _'they'_ were waking up. _damn it, not now!_ Leon fought down panic even as he continued to draw his gun, _I can't be losing it now, there's no time for another dose!_

Jill covered him with her sub-machine gun, firing nonstop the bullets seeming to just sink to the exposed rubbery flesh of the creature, eliciting more horrific howls and garbled words from the still terribly human head on its shoulder, and giving Leon the time needed fight down the cramps in his muscles and draw forth another gun in his belt. The black metal shone in the light as the cylinder spun with the speed-loader he popped into it, and he smirked at the creature.

In his hand shone the dark metal of a 44 caliber LeMat centerfire handcannon. A more practical replica to be precise, utilizing a double action, and modern gunpowder, but every bit as lethal as its Civil War ancestor, as the fiend before him was about to find out.

Leon squeezed the trigger.

The handcannon seemed to roar in the cramped confines of the ship, bucking in his hand, the shot tore on through the mouth of the beast and on out the back of whatever passed for its head, and it stumbled back a ways, the human head's own mouth opening and closing rapidly though no sound came out this time.

Leon flicked the selector switch on the gun, and let loose with the revolver's single shotgun round, blasting the human face dead on and tearing the head off the beast's torso entirely. It stumbled back again, shuddering before ultimately tumbling down the steps and onto the deck below.

For a moment all was still, and the pair breathed a sigh of relief, but then there was a clear hideous sloshing sound and more oozing creatures dropped from the vents in the ceiling. They were similar creatures to the ones the both of them had fought earlier.

"My god." Jill whispered as it seemed once again they were surrounded. Jill & Leon locked eyes, and a thought passed between them, they nodded to one another.

They moved as one, Leon diving towards the Oozes coming at them from behind, while Jill drove forward, her own combat knife flashing through the air, and she hacked their exposed necks with all the force she could muster, in one wide swing that nearly took their heads off altogether.

And while they were preoccupied with holding their heads on, Jill almost casually slid in behind, and gave them both a forceful shove in Leon's direction.

Leon for his part, had dove at the legs of the others, launching a wide sweeping kick that quite literally tore the legs out from under one of the creatures, while the others just fell to the deck, clawing at one another in confusion and rage.

Leon dodged their clawing hands, and pushed past the two Jill had sent stumbling his way, giving them an extra shove so that they fell into a confused mess with the other three.

It was almost comical as the five slime covered abominations fumbled at one another, clawing and screeching, and attempting to get back to their feet and at the ones that had put them in this situation, even as Jill pulled the pin on a grenade and tossed it in their midst.

The explosion sent a dust cloud over the area. Several bloated corpses flung out from the impact. One of them was sent backwards and head first into a wall. Something snapped and it just fell over to the ground entirely dead this time... hopefully.

"Finally some peace and quiet. " Leon commented. "Nice job Valentine, not that I'd expect anything less." Jill breathed in deep and a soft laugh followed. "Yeah, not bad yourself Kennedy."

Leon waited, but it became quite obvious that she'd said all she was going to on the matter."What ? Nothing else ?" He pressed, a smile playing at the corners of his lips, despite his annoyed tone.

"Nope, just take the compliment and don't drag it out. " Jill chuckled, rolling her eyes.

" Why thank you, " He grinned, "I- gyuh!" In the middle of the walk he felt another pain spread throughout his body, like something heavy moving within his chest. A harsh cough came, he couldn't hold back, doubling over and wretching violently.

Jill stopped and turned, watching him worry evident in her face. "Are you... ?"

Leon waved his hand in gesture to go ahead before him. "I-I'm fine just... gooo-grrkk!" He clutched at his chest and throat, and felt his veins popping out, straining against his skin. _Not now!_ he thought with a low groan, _my medicine... they-_

He stood up straight, and forced a placid smile across his features, despite the pain wracking his body. He had to get this under control, he had to keep it under wraps.

"I'm fine," He assured her yet again, though neither of them believed it, "I... I just have a condition that... doesn't react well to stress like this, let's move on."

"Sure... whatever you say Ice man." Jill said

They proceeded onto the room where the large creature had been. It was small, obviously meant for storage. The room itself appeared to have nothing really out of place. Like nothing had ever happened. On the shelf at the right side they saw the small key and a file next to it.

" Here it is, finally. " Jill took it and noticed Leon outside lowered his head out of view, setting still like a statue.

"What ?" she asked as she came closer to him. "Are you okay?"

Out of nowhere Leon jumped and held her throat with both of his hands, squeezing with a death grip. Jill felt the air vanish too fast as she tried to fight his heavy grip.

His eyes were bloodshot, with what looked like black tendrils threading through them "Wha...do … " She tried to speak, her vision begin to blur, and she jabbed him as hard as she could in all the vital areas she could reach, he only grunted and seemed to squeeze even tighter. Just as she felt the black of unconciousness beginning to close over her, Leon released his grip on her, and she fell to the floor gasping for air, and straining coughing.

" What the hell you think you were doing ?" She asked between heavy breaths. "Is this one of your jokes?" She demanded, her hand not straying far from her gun. "If so, its not funny!"

There was a horrified expression painted in his face. "… I didn't mean to … I... " He fumbled about his person, even as she watched him carefully. He drew out a steel vial, and a small device that proved to be an injector as he combined the two.

She watched silently as he pulled down the collar of his shirt to expose his musclular chest, aimed carefully then pushed the needle of the injector into his flesh, pressing it into his own heart, and pulled the trigger on the injector, dispensing the contents of the vial into his bloodstream.

She noticed that there were a good many scars on that chest, some of them obviously from other similar injections. He shook for a moment, and a sheen of pink sweat shone over his features, a sure sign of blood vessles having ruptured, one she was all too familiar with, having experienced it herself, from all the stress of taking on the various abominations of Umbrella.

Soon though his body ceased its mild convulsion, and though he appeared tired, he also looked more normal, with far less tension in his body. "What the hell was that?!" she demanded, eyes never leaving him, and her hands still resting close to her gun and blade.

He closed his eyes and sighed, "I... have a type of epilepsy." He rubbed at his chest carefully. "I take pills to keep in check but..." he wiped some of the sweat from his eyes and sighed, "as you just saw, the pills don't always work like they're supposed to, espescially in times of stress, which is when I need an injection of the good stuff in my pack here." he patted at his utility belt. "

"So that's why you-" she started, and he nodded a sorrowful look in his dark eyes, "yeah... its rare but, sometimes my body tends to get rather... aggressive when I'm in one of those states... but its no excuse, Jill I-" She held up a hand, an understanding look in her eye, "No, its okay you weren't yourself." She nodded in the direction of the way out of the deck, since there is no way back through the garage door."Let's just forget about it and move on okay?" she continued.

He nodded, a complicated expression dominating his features. "Alright... you go on ahead, I want to check something out."

She frowned, "Splitting up really isn't the best idea Kennedy, you of all people should know that."

Leon closed his eyes then sighed. "I'll be fine, I just... well I think I saw something down there that could be of use to us, but it might be nothing. I'll investigate it and follow you, won't take but a few moments."

Jill nodded reluctantly, then made her way up ahead alone. Once the sound of her footsteps vanished, he took in a deep breath.

 _That was close... too close._ He thought, and rubbed at his eyes tiredly. The muscle relaxer/suppressant concoction had done its job, and he couldn't have been more relived about that fact. _I still can't believe they cleared me for missions like this... even though they know what could happen._

He could feel 'Them' twisting and turning about in his flesh, feel their tendrils wrapped around his innards, pulsing, squeezing down on him like a vice, and then relaxing abruptly, rinse and repeat, slower and slower as the muscle relaxers worked their magic, and enabled the suppressant work its own charms.

He wiped at his face one more time, before standing up straight and making his way carefully down the stairs.

Gun at the ready, his ears tuned to any sound, he looked about for targets but the place was peaceful. They did just clear it out. Leon took a moment to relax.

His vision blurred yet again, and he braced himself for what he knew was coming.

Before him, the decks, the ooze covered walls, and the broken glass all around... it all bled away, fading out to be replaced with the sight of a cool autumn morning and he saw children running around a playground making piles of brown-reddish leaves, they jumped straight in to hear them crunch. The pieces of it leaves scattered about in the air and flew like feathers on the wind. A couple of families scattered around. Mothers and fathers helping their children up onto the monkey bars.

There he saw himself, a seven years old cheerful kid playing in the swing, his arms are wide open and his eyes closed like he is welcoming the wind and the beautiful feeling that followed it.

" Hey baby. " He heard a gentle voice.

He opened his eyes, only to see his mother in front of him holding a camera. " Say cheese. "

Leon's lips curled into a warm smile, remembering the good years. "Wake up Kennedy. " He whispered, and the vision vanished. He tightened his grip on his gun... the gun his mother had given him, and went after Jill.

 **Thank you for reading.**

 **Special thanks to my good friend** The Grinning Psychopath.


	13. Chapter 12 A nightmare revisited

**Chapter 12. "A nightmare revisited."**

Leon watched each and every little corner of the rooms and hallways he passed, time seeming to move ever slower, and the shadows even more daunting and suspicious as as he moved through the corridors. Only once he was reunited with Jill did he finally breath a sigh of relief.

They checked one another over quickly with their eyes and once they were satisfied that neither had procured any new life threatening injures they made their way up behind the golden clock.

The door swung open and the two agents came in, weapons drawn and to their surprise they found the ginger haired FBC agent known as Raymond. He glanced their way and sighed, "Looks like both of us are late." Leon furrowed his eyebrows at the sight of broken machinery.

"You've gotta be kidding me." Leon grumbled and he went in to check, hoping to find something still working. "Both of you...look." Raymond stated the gestured to the monitor.

The screen showed a masked man… talking. The same one who sent the video. "It's our masked friend, what does he want?" Leon asked. Tense silence filled the room as the three agents listened to what he have to say.

"Is that the fugitive that worked for Umbrella?" Leon looked over his shoulder to Jill. "HUNK right?"

"No, he's a mercenary, this is way too far out his standard motivations. Plus, the BSAA in South America is following a potential lead." Jill stared into the monitor.

The Unknown figure immediately raised his leather glove to the back of his head then removed the strap of the gasmask. He revealed his face. Caucasian, with a shaved head and goatee, the man had a stern expression. "We are Veltro, Vengeful messengers from the depth of the inferno." The man stopped to take his breath. "Abandon hope all ye who enters here."

'A little melodramatic don't you think?' Leon noted.

Both Leon's and Jill's PDA received a message. For a moment they exchanged confused looks, before they checked their devices. The screen showed a small boat expand twice in size with a orange afterglow. Several bits of scrap rained into the ocean.

"That's the tugboat!?" Jill grimaced with a hint of panic.

Leon punched the machine, ignoring the pain that flashed throughout his body as 'they' reacted to his stress, too annoyed by all of this to really give a damn. "Damn it! Fucking terrorists, any ideas of how to get off this Titanic sequel?"

'And what does HE have to do with anything?' Leon thought, he could feel heartache, at the memory of what happened earlier. 'Enjoy your time here because you'll never leave this ship.'

"We killed these bastards already." Raymond stated coldly, his eyes hard as the steel deck beneath their boots.

"Well it looks like you missed a few," Jill said dryly and hooked her PDA up to what remained of the machines, in an attempt to boost her signal, but to no avail. "And they're on this ship."

Leon heaved an annoyed sigh as he realized how their moves were planned for them, just like a rather one sided game of chess. "Now they want to use the virus to stage another attack, another tragedy for us to clean up." He theorized and looked back to Raymond for confirmation.

Raymond shook his head, and looked off towards the distant glow that had been their ride up until a few moments ago, though he seemed to be looking at something even further off, something only he could perceive. "They seek the truth about Terragrigia with diluted vengeance." Raymond clicked his shoes and walked out of the room.

Leon huffed, "Well he's a big help." he muttered darkly.

"Leon check this out." Jill called. She read a number of papers in her hand. "It seems the whole ship is out of power. The ship is currently on the emergency power generator but the system needs the main power. Communications are down without it, so it's the best course of action we have at the moment."

Leon nodded, "Sounds like a plan to me." He patted himself down, and grunted. "Gonna need to stop by whatever passes for an armory on this ship," he growled, "I'm running low on ammo."

Jill sighed, "Yeah me too, so we're gonna need to really make our shots count." Leon grinned, "I always do."

Jill had to suppress a shudder as they moved along the corridors. Something about the aura of their surroundings felt oddly familiar, and she despised this feeling.' They're not going to take me again. I won't let them win.' she vowed silently to herself, and tightened her grip on the pistol.

Together they made their way past the doors and back to the clock tower hall. The light dimmed for several seconds and neither agent liked that sign at all. Jill double checked clips for her pistol & submachine gun as they walked for the staircase to the next section they needed to go. They were met by Raymond who waited in front of the stairs, he was holding something in his hand. "Take this Kennedy, you might need it."

Leon stared at the key in his hand, not sure what to think of this. It was an iron anchor key, "Alright." he said shaking his head and took it. Why is it that weird shit like this always comes along for the ride with Umbrella's bullshit!?

Raymond went on. "That key will get you through the casino on the first floor. Then you'll find a lift to take you to the bilge." He crossed his arms and looked at Jill. "Tell me something first. You didn't see any other FBC members here, did you? I can't reach my partner Rachel ever since she went to the bilge."

Leon just shook his head. "Sorry, but you're the only living person we met thus far."

Raymond swore, "Damn it, I hope she's okay."

Leon nodded sympathetically, he knew all too well how it could be worrying over lost partner, and a female one at that, in a situation like this. "We'll keep an eye out for her, can't promise much else though, sorry."

Ray's already grim expression, soured even further but didn't say anything. He knew the business just as they did, and knew that it was the best he could reasonably hope for.

Leon walked on passed him to the stairs, Jill following close behind. She paused on the first step down and turned back to the ginger agent. "I'm sure she's okay," she murmured to him gently, "if your people recruited her then she has to be one of the best. We'll find her Ray, or hell maybe she'll find us." Ray smiled slightly, though much the same as her own blonde partner, it didn't really touch his eyes. Appreciating her words even if he didn't believe them.

"Thanks," he nodded towards where the aforementioned blonde had disappeared to. "Better get on the move on, before you lose your partner as well, good luck."

They went down Leon in the lead, and Jill keeping a near constant watch on their rear, so that nothing could sneak up on them.

More than once Jill swore she could hear something organic sliding across the metal corridor, or even something slithering in the vents overhead. But when she turned her light on where the sounds originated, she found only cold metal and dust.

"That must be the lock he mentioned," Leon sighed, "god I hate all this odd-ass Umbrella paraphernalia." and Jill glanced back down his way and saw what he meant immediately.

Before them was a heavy metal door, with a strangely shaped lock.

Leon dug out the anchor key, Ray had given them, slid it into place and twisted. He was only mildly relieved when the lock gave, and the doors swung open.

Once the door opened, darkness welcomed them. Jill reached for her lower back and pulled out a right angle flashlight then strapped at her left shoulder then clipped it place. Once she finished, Leon did the same but his flashlight was a headband flashlight then placed it above his left ear. Once that was the case, Leon entered the darkened area first.

Everything was out of power, even the escalator they walked down to the place.

They could hear an obvious sound of dripping water. Leon shined his light in front and he saw the source, a stony water fountain that contained several fish, it was in the middle of the place.

"Hold on." Jill said and ran to the other side of the fountain. "There's a breaker,"

After a moment he heard the sound of something clicking. Red emergency lights begin to fill the place, the fountain started to flow some water while only a handful of slot machines activated.

Jill came down the stairs, smiling. "Well it looks like you're going to have a time after all. We need coins to open the door up there."

"Nice." Leon joked. "I could use a nice cocktail and try my luck."

"No such thing as luck there Kennedy." Jill pointed out as she checked a row of machines for hostiles.

"Ah well that's no fun. What are you, a Murphy's Law fan?" Leon said as he took out several coins.

"Not exactly, luck is just how people construct a way of understanding a specific moment in time. We make our own outcomes."

"Like you did back in Raccoon City?" Leon quipped back as he tossed a smaller coin back in the water. Several fish scattered about.

"Somewhat like that. I don't like to think many subjects can be explained simply. Like this mission." Jill crossed her arms.

Leon rotated his head around the dim casino. "Agreed." Leon fished out a rather one of the shiner coins. "Seriously It feels like we're trapped here on purpose."

"Sweet, there is some on the water." He was about to bend down, but something happened and the water slowly started to turn red. He instinctively took his arm out of the fountain.

"Oh no. Whoever thought that a red wine fountain was a good idea, really needs to learn originality." Leon stood up by reaction and flicked some water off his hand. Jill watched from across the room with her back leaned up against a wall. Leon shrugged as he walked toward her and immediately, several grumbled sounds spewed out of the fountain.

Leon and Jill set their flashlights at the fountain to see several football sized piranha lunge out with exposed fangs. Four in total and each of them flipped about but main the effort to move toward them.

"Infected?" Leon asked.

"Infected." Jill replied then quickly drew her handgun. The two opened fire on the incoming threat.

A large looking fish jumped out of the water. Whatever noise they made, it was caused by it constantly expanding gills and spewing out red water. It wasn't bloody since there wasn't a potent smell of iron. The agents were all too familiar with such a undesired perfume. Leon fired his handgun, not giving it a chance to lay on the ground.

Jill was next and her aim caught another fish. "I saw these in the video." she commented.

"Remind me later." he replied. Two fishes jumped out of the water, leaving a tiny bite scars at the two of them.

"Arrgh." he was able to hold one and kicked it far to the side. Jill struggled a little with the fish attached to her, it hurts while trying to blast it away. The fish wiggled about on the carpet and eventually, one of them got close enough to jump at Jill. It embedded itself on her left forearm and she grunted at the pain.

A punch followed, from Leon and the fish flow away and landed upon a slot machine. Once it was silent, they heard the sound of something metal fall on the ground. The two kept at it for thirty seconds and the each of the fish were dead.

At the corner of his eyes Leon saw a golden coin near the table. He bent down and held the coin carefully. "Ah great." Jill said.

"Stand aside my fair lady, I have a magic hand and I can win this easily." Even though his tone is serious, Jill couldn't help the smile that broke across her face.

"Alright, just hurry up jackass." She watched him put the coin in the first machine against the wall, he rubbed his hands together for a moment and pulled the stick. She checked her would and expressed some concern if there was something about this virus they don't know about yet. She applied a small dose of first aid spray on the bite, will saving the other for Leon, and kept an eye on the fountain.

The machine activated, and it stopped on three images. The slots had a faint light to them and Leon sat down and smiled. "Well with luck, maybe she'll smile at me for this."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night." Jill rolled her eyes.

Leon entered the several of the coins and pulled on the crank. The slots rotated proceeded to have several icons spin. "What influenced you to be so pessimistic?"

"Just from the daily grind of the crap misguided bad guys could do. I'm not part of STARS anymore but I can't help it, like I'm still doing police work." Jill somewhat winced her lips.

"I didn't do much in when I became an officer." Leon admitted as the three cylinders gave him three icons that didn't match at all. He shook his head.

"Being a casino bouncer doesn't sound that alluring as well." Jill smugly smiled behind Leon.

"The luck of the moment."

"So says the man using a machine that is designed to give you less of what feed it." Jill pointed out as Leon lost the second coin press. None of the icons matched again. Leon grimaced as tried again.

"I read what happened that time, as I read your report in Spain." Jill commented as she watched the icons spin around again. "Whatever happened to that man who sold you weapons?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Leon rolled his eyes as the slot machine cheated him out of coins again.

"Of course stranger…" Jill chuckled at the end as she watch Leon lose yet again.

"Do me a favor, for me, would ya?" Leon held his palm with several more coins. "Just humor me."

Jill shook her head then gently blew on the coins. She leaned back skeptical on the optimistic view of Leon. He had an expressionless face as he loaded the machine yet again. The lights flicked again as Jill glanced back to watch for danger. Leon turned around and thought about talking.

He opened his mouth.

DING DING DING!

Flickers of light appeared behind the pair and the two glanced back at the machine. It chimed, flashed and beamed the golden words of YOU WIN! Leon turned to Jill.

.

.

.

"Shut up." It was the only response Jill gave to the smug asshole.

Leon took the bundle of coins. The walked toward the staircase leading up to the VIP section. Jill stood in the front blocking his way, "Pass me the coins, it's my turn to work on the door."

"Fine." He chuckled and hand it over. The two walked up the stairs and stood before the door. "So any idea how does this work?" She said and put the coins on the pan, nothing happened and the door was still locked.

"Well according to this," he said and pointed at words written on the woman's collar bone. "We need one hundred and seven, upon the pan."

Jill put down 4 of the brown coins and the screen showed the number 28. "Good, try the silver one." 5 coins were placed and the number came close to their goal.

"The gold coins left, let's see." Jill said and placed 5, though the number was 158. She removed three and the moment she did that a sound of unlock can be heard coming from the door.

"Bingo." Leon said and opened the door. The well decorated Room was a place to play cards, while also watching the whole casino through the camera screens.

They saw a red box on a couch that the both of them accepted with grace. Red Hawk, one of the main manufacturers for pistol ammunition. Luckily for the duo, they had pistols that needed 9mm rounds. "Lucky me." Leon said and checked the magazine and what he had left. It felt completely heavy and that was a very good sign.

"I get it, now hurry up." Jill said and she put her foot down carefully, there was an entrance in the other side of the small room, it had a steel ladder." We should find the lift down there."

Leon carried the Red Hawk on his belt and followed Jill down, the path down had two ventilator, one was near them, and the other is at the end where they could see another ladder going down.

"Right into the depth of hell eh Jill?" Leon teased, as the made a jump for it this time, the force of their landing made their feet ache a little, but they managed.

"Yeah. Question, what is that?" Jill pointed at something green in the wall of both side.

"I don't want to know." He said and ran toward the ladder at the end, they had to climb up this time. Up there they saw their destination. "There is the lift," Jill said, the two of them were standing at the edge of the path, scanning the area.

Leon was the first to jump down, he walked around the railing and went through the way to the lift, the stick was heavy under his hand, but he was able to push it, there was no response.

"A key is missing." Jill said behind him. "Seriously our luck is down the drain. I'll go look for it."

"Oh no, you're not going anywhere without me, we'll go look for it together." he shouted and pushed her behind a few steps of him.

"God, again with this issue?" she didn't want to bother to fight about this anymore, this is the way he works for some reason. Though it is much better for them to separate, to be able to find the key faster. Jill stayed silent and went through the double door.

At the end of the corridor, they found a working elevator that could lead them somewhere. Leon studied the map, and it seems this one will takes them back to the corridor they went through, when they first arrived at the ship. "Do we really need to go back?" Leon asked, his eyes widened. "Hold on, could it be Rachel had the key to the lift?"

Jill paced left and right in deep thought." I think I might have an idea of where she is."

"Do you mean the woman you found earlier?" He pondered and pushed the button for the door to close.

"Yeah, it makes sense if it was her, although I hope not. She might be still alive somewhere." It took a second for the elevator to the take them back, the door opened and they saw the familiar corridor.

"Follow me." Jill said, and they continued through the hall in silence.

...

The sky has blend in with the gray color, it feels like she was enclosed in a dome of fog, the moon and the stars were barely visible, there was patches of clouds around, from the after storm. She could feel the cold air freeze her bones, but she didn't care. There is nothing she could do to pick up the pieces of her broken heart. Still thinking of that video they watched earlier, of the words that man spoke.

"Elizabeth, are you okay?"

"No I'm not okay," she responded in an annoyed deadpan tone. She felt Steven's left arm warp around her.

"Talk to me." he whispered in her ear. "We have good news from Chris, they're looking for the ship now, the masked man showed his face for some reason, he doesn't want to hide anymore, so the investigation is going greet."

Elizabeth allowed herself to sob quietly, she laid her head on his shoulder. "I can't take this anymore, I want my baby back...is that too much to ask Steve? Why don't you care much? I'm losing my mind here worrying about this, and what hurts me the most he is on his own, we don't exist."

Steven pressed a gentle kiss on her cheek. "You know me, I don't show my true colors on subjects, you don't want to see what I feel in my heart." He said and made her turn to look at him. The pain in her eyes was too much for him to handle, an aura of depression was written all over her face. "I'm suffering too."

Steven caressed her cheeks. "You know what, let's find a helicopter and go look for our son, we might reach the destination right after Chris Redfield does."

In mere seconds her face shined of hope and happiness. "Thank you." she said and the two shared a tender embrace.

"I hope you still remember how to use a weapon." He teased.

"Don't worry I'm still strong as ever."

Steve brought her hand close to his lips and kissed her. "Go get ready, we have a tough road ahead of us."

She nodded then jogged toward the stairs, out of the rooftop.

Steven returned to O'Brian's office, only to find the man talking to Quint and Keith. "Go already, the airport needs to be investigated."

"O'Brian, me and my wife will leave over the sea, we'll look for the ship and help them."

O'Brian couldn't hide his shock. "Sir, we're doing good, Chris and Jessica are doing their best."

Steve shock his head sadly. "It's not enough, our son in there and we have to go, can you help us?"

O'Brian knew he cannot stop a parent from such a quest, so no point in arguing. "Alright I'll be in contact with you through this."

"Thank you." Steve replied and went to the corner making some phone calls to prepare a ride for the two of them. "Hello this is Senator Kennedy speaking, It's an emergency can I speak with Ingrid Hunnigan?...

.

.

.

"Yes Mister Kennedy, is everything alright?"

"Hunnigan, I need a helicopter ride now, don't ask why."

"You got it, five minutes and it'll be there in the BSAA HQ rooftop, don't worry." she responded calmly. "I owe you one after all."

It is almost a hidden fact, Hunnigan, he was the one to put her there, to be the one to watch over him during his missions, now she was like the most helpful and reliable source, not to mention a good friend.

Steve hanged up the phone, and he saw one of the members coming his way with a vest and a weapon belt equipped with a pistol. Elizabeth was coming in behind him fully equipped and ready. He couldn't help but notice the look of happiness that painted her face, in spite the danger awaits the two of them. She strapped on several buckles in place of the career that she once dedicated her life to. Steven couldn't recall how happy she was back in her protection days. He knew very will now, from that look in her face, nothing will stand on her way to the reunion with her heart, Leon.

Steve took the vest from the young man and thanked him, "Our ride will be in the rooftop soon darling, we must go." he whispered and put on the vest.

He checked the ammo supplies, and the gun magazine, making sure everything is set well. "Check your weapon Lizzy." He not so subtly glanced at how she strapped a pistol holster to her thigh.

"Don't worry, I'm ready." She replied with a wink. Elizabeth held his hand and squeezed, a sign of support and comfort.

Steven kissed her hand one last time and signaled her to follow to the rooftop.

...

Leon and Jill crept down the hall, to the door she went through before, their steps this time sound wet from the stained hall of the left over storm, leading around a turn with their weapon, letting out a breath when he saw that it, was clear. So far, so good. Jill pushed the door open. "She's down there."

They sprinted down the sticky stairs, there he saw a large broken glass and stains of blood all over. Leon holstered his gun and carefully jumped inside.

"Oh my..." he whispered at the sight of a pool of blood, a sight he didn't see for a while and never wish to see ever again. Though the room was empty, the body of the woman vanished.

"She's dead." Jill stated."I'm sure."

The thick silence was interrupted by a creepy voice echoed. "Come play with me."

The two agents rotated to the window, they were met by a horrible sight of an ooze shaped woman. The wetsuit she wore was shredded as it was clear she expanded in size. Several veins pulsated over her grey skin and patches of moist blood seeping out. The blood didn't look like ti broke through the skin but rather seep out. Her right arm split half then scratched at the glass. "What the hell!?" Jill said. "How did she turn so quickly?"

A loud laugh echoed from her and she stumbled and ran away toward the stairs. "Hide and seek isn't my favorite game, but here, I'll do it." Leon said and ran after the dead woman. "Come on Jill." he called.

"Yes I'm right behind you, we must catch her."

The woman jumped out of an air ducts again, "Found you." she said clearly, her mouth gurgled a white liquid half of it was stuck on Leon's abdomen.

"I never liked searching hard for women." Disgusted, Leon drew his weapon and fired multiple times at her, but the woman seemed to be tough to break.

The bullets doesn't affect her strongly like the others, the woman raised her thick arm toward him, Leon was able to dodge a first strike, but he wasn't very lucky with the other arm and it hit his shoulder forcefully where he almost fell off the stairs. Jill's machine gun picked up the pace and the creature was halted from jumping on Leon to down the stairs.

"It hurts, iiittt huuurrrttts." She screamed and jumped on the air ducts.

Jill came up the stairs, toward him. "Wow, she must have the hots for you, huh?" she said in a calm tone.

"Very funny."

"I know." Jill reloaded his gun. "We must look for her. Not sure where the hell she'll jump down to."

"Maybe in the bathroom, let's go."

Back in the hall, they took a deep breath, after hearing the crazy woman's laugh, and Leon reached for his Magnum.

He no longer cared, he'll blow her brain out, the real woman died hours ago. Jill knew all too well of Leon's plan, they had no choice but to put her down mercifully as quickly as possible.

They went through the room with the bunk beds, once they were consumed by darkness, another crazy laugh echoed. "ttTaaAsStttyY."

Jill nodded and took out her last grenade, mentally prepared herself for the blow. Lightly they went through the room and gun first went through the bathroom door.

The flashlight immediately shined upon the ooze woman. "Found you." and she started trembling fast toward them.

"NOW!" Leon shouted.

The cylinder shape rolled on the bathroom floor as the two agents walked away. Once the creature came in content, the grenade exploded. Once the smoke cleared, Leon came in first with his magnum, Jill next to him ready with her MP5k.

The woman's body laid still, they couldn't tell if she's dead. A gurgling sound came from the creature. Leon didn't wait and he fired a bullet through her head, twice.

Though the creature-woman still tried to stand up, Jill continued and fired a number of bullets. A loud cry came from the woman and she fall on the ground sobbing for a moment, her leach organ was pulled inside and she moved no more. Jill took out the Genesis and started a reading over her body. "It was really Rachel." She said as the screen showed the key clearly. Leon looked at the side of the creature and saw the shiny small key.

"Not the end I hope for." He whispered and snatched the key from the thick Liquid.

They hurried out of the bathroom and down the hall, moving quickly. They hadn't gotten far in their run, more creatures came in their way and they had to shoot their way through them, until the elevator.

"Raymond should know about what happened to his partner." Leon said once the door closed.

"Yeah, once we run into him again, he'll know."

The door opened and they sprinted out through the corridor and out through the double door. "It's time to start with the power." Leon said and waked over the railing and inside the lift. Jill put the key in the place activating it, and Leon pulled the stick down. The lift began taking them down. Jill pulled back the chamber to her pistol.

"Into the depth of hell."


	14. Chapter 13 for you

**Chapter 13. "For you..."**

The sound of the rotor blades whipped constantly as two individuals in the passenger portion just stared out. One calm, one anxious. Their eyes observed the deathly quiet ocean below.

"What do you think it could be like at the place?" Steven asked.

"What? Over." Elizabeth responded.

"I said, what do you think it be like at the place?"

"You're not supposed to do that, over."

"What?"

"You need to end your sentences with the word over… over." She smiled at her husband's clear annoyance. "It's a general rule when a person is in a helicopter. Over."

"Whatever… over."

"You're getting it, over." Elizabeth refrained from breaking into total laughter. Until a light in the back changed which signaled the two to pay attention. From there the two prepped their equipment again and it hovered over a wide deck. The two fast roped down and Elizabeth was the first one to land and get a gun leveled and aimed at their surrounding.

"So, we're here at last." Steven said in a microphone, he walked down the few steps toward the doors. A cold chill shivered slightly in the back of his mind and back. As if an icy finger just traced the outline of his spine in a playful dreadful manner. Elizabeth ran passed him without speaking a single word as reflexes kicked in.

"Where do you think they are?" He asked.

Elizabeth stood before the window watching the room inside, she could feel her heart beat accelerates. "We'll find out."

She placed her hand upon her chest and breathed. "Let's just go inside."

Together they went through the door, and it seems inside was a place to set and observe the deck in a nice view. There was a small safe in the wall closed, near is table and couches, so is the rest of the room.

"Now this is my kind of place." Elizabeth said. Steven held her hand and ran to the other side, where there was a working elevator.

She went first and stood near the buttons, Steven came behind of her and waited anxiously, not sure where it will take them. Once the door opened, they found themselves in a well-lit hall and a steel double door. "Weird, how is there power?" Elizabeth asked.

"Maybe it is an emergency power? Depending on the build, it could operate for several days." His hand touched the cold handle and pushed the door open.

Elizabeth noticed that Steven walked over a large carpet floor matt. It read the _Promenade Deck_.

The two stood in silence, surprised of what they saw. This apparently was some form of outdoor mini-mall which looked like it was meant for a wide open sky than metal casings which surrounded it. The walls and the architecture like it is a small district, for the passengers' enjoyment. "Nice, remind me to take you in a trip someday." Steve commented.

Suddenly a sound grow, a sloshing emerging from somewhere. Her senses kicked in and she lunged herself to the right. Nothing obstructed her landing as she had her gun ready.

"Jesus what is that?" Steve asked with evident fear in his voice. Another sound appeared and turned behind only to see more creatures throw themselves down.

A menacing smile grew on her face. "Great now I have a cowardly lions to deal with." she commented.

Under anxious glances, several creatures grew out of the gaps in the metal work. Slimy and pale. One of them had an elongated arm that looked to be more bone than flesh. The other three were humanoid in shape and one of them flicked a sucker out to reveal leech teeth.

The ooze like creature trembled and stood in its feet, Elizabeth immediately opened fire at the creature near her. It stumbled and once it stumbled in place with the tongue out. Elizabeth capitalized on the opportunity. She mentally prepped her left leg and bent her back and floored the ooze and stomped on the face. Once it twitched again, she blasted at the head several times.

Steven pulled himself together and begin moving around to not give a chance for the other creatures to catch, distributing the bullets between the three, in a clean shots. Elizabeth jumped at the first one near the restaurant, she draw her knife and buried it deep in its face, until half of the head was in her hand bleeding. She stood for a moment cleaning her hand.

An ooze seeped out of an air vent and it towered over Steven as he fired upon it before it could ambush his wife.

Once the other two were down, Steven took out the PDA and checked. "Come on, the hall is over there."

They went through a steel door, it took them to the other-side of the deck. Up the stairs they found a closed garage door, but it wasn't needed for them to search through the place more. They went over a bridge way and to the door at the end. They checked over the stone stairs and saw another closed garage door.

"This is Jackass here, give me a sit-rep." The radio buzzed.

Elizabeth put her hand on her left ear. "I read you, can you tell us how can we find Leon and Jill?"

"Mrs. Kennedy? Um yeah, judging by the ship's condition I believe there is a problem with the engines. I'd wager they're at the ship's bilge." Quint blurted.

"How do we go there?" Steven asked.

"There should be a hall up ahead, go through the casino, there is a path leads you down to the Bilge."

Elizabeth was the one to turn the handle and open the fancy double door. It took them to the clock tower golden hall. Everything shined off itself on a single chandelier source. All over, the golden rays had the area have a dim light which had the place feel almost welcoming. The clock though has stopped at 9:30 PM.

"Now where is this casino?" Steven wondered as he walked to the stairs.

They paced up, Elizabeth at full alert until they found another door. "That's a communication room." Elizabeth pointed at the small sign. "Maybe it is in the first floor." She holstered the gun and turned back, heading for the stairs.

Another heart ache made her stop at the top, holding her chest. "Calm down." She whispered.

Steven held her hand and squeezed. "Are you okay?"

She smiled and nodded. "Let's go."

Together they took a turn around the stairs and they saw another door. The red carpet read 'Casino.' Words are no longer needed, carefully they went through the door and waited in the other side, fingers ready at the trigger.

Once the door opened, they moved in unison protecting each others' backs over the escalator. "A wine fountain, really?" Steven rolled his eyes. At the sight of the fountain in the middle of the place.

"Didn't stop you…" Elizabeth smiled to incite an old memory they shared. Steven shook his head slightly embarrassed. She returned to her old mindset and scanned the casino floor.

"Something is over there, be careful." Elizabeth whispered. There was a door in the right side, someone or something is trying to break through.

They stood near the fountain, guns aimed and ready, their anxiety increasing in each passing seconds. After a minute of waiting, the door fall and two large creatures came out. "IMMMMM A HUMAN!" It seemed both of them were repeating these words.

It was the creature like the ones before but there was a head on a shoulder with a oversized mouth on the other. It stumbled over every step and the skin rippled as well. As it walked like duck. Lumbering and sloppy.

"Eww you two are very ugly!" Elizabeth commented. Steven moved around getting the attention of one of them. His gun fired over and over though the creature's movement still fast to his surprise.

He stood mentally prepared, as the thing raised its chainsaw-arm, like a lighting it came down. Steven bend backwards and jumped to the side, a lucky dodge, and he continued firing at it. "Come on!"

Elizabeth had tried to daze the thing, by going in circles, firing at any part of his body, she wasn't careful enough unlike her usual self. The thing took a hold of her waist and brought her up, his chainsaw arm charging. "Sorry, I'm happily married." She took out her knife and pushed herself forward, avoiding the arm.

She hacked through the beast's face with so much force, it made the creature tremble and his grip loosened. Once she was on the ground again, she walked backwards preparing for another plan, but out of nowhere an explosion had made her fly and slam at one of the machines.

She moaned in pain, it took her a moment to breathe and recover. There she saw the creatures melt into nothing, repeating. "mAY-daAAaaAyY..."

Steve sprinted toward her. "Are you okay?" he asked and helped her to stand on her feet.

"Yeah, you should've warned me." she shouted.

He waved the silver key before her eyes, "This came out of the fountain."

They sprinted to the new room, it was small office of some kind. Steven was about to use the key over the door when he heard Elizabeth. "Wait, check this out."

Steven looked back at her, she was checking something at the computer. "There is a recording here!" Right under the video there was something written for information and the name Lansdale.

Elizabeth pressed the play button, noises like bad static was the first thing they could hear, though after a second the sound cleared. They heard what it seems to be a sound of a siren mixed with a loud waterfall.

"There has to be a way!" A woman out of breath spoke.

"We're running out of time!" Leon said between breaths. "I'm...not...going...drown here." the sound of coughs followed and that was the end of the recording.

Her hand was warm with her hot tears. "This was two hours ago!" she said between silent sobs and put her hand over her mouth. "Oh Leon!"

Steven closed his eyes and breathed in and out, fighting back the urge to panic and scream. "Honey, we don't know what happened. They might found a way out of the water. Let's go and find them already."

Immediately he used the key and to their luck the door opened. They found a ladder going down to darkness, Elizabeth took out a flashlight and strapped over her belt, while Steven held into his and carefully put his legs down, one step at the time until both of them are down in a dark storage room.

The ground was covered in blood and some unrecognizable things, right in the front of the small room they saw something like a bulging lump of meat that has residual hands and legs.

Steven was ahead of her shooting at the thing, but out of nowhere the creature exploded knocking them both off their feet. Steven landed on his chest as Elizabeth landed on her back. Both of them grunted in pain but nothing serious was done to them.

"Damn it." Steven said, and he realized both of them are seriously dirty after that commotion, not to mention the blood stains off the ground.

"That's nothing compared to the C section I went through," Elizabeth blurted.

Steven raised an eyebrow."You still remember?"

"Are you kidding me? Let's go."

They walked passed the filled shelves and went through the door ahead. They found themselves in another dark storage room, this one however had a dim red light, two to three creatures were trembling around. "I never liked welcoming parties." Steven shouted, annoyed, Elizabeth pulled a grenade from his belt and throw it at them. Her legs moved without hesitation, though she wasn't fast enough, she slammed against the shelf after the creatures exploded.

Steven was in the ground again, "Easy Elizabeth, don't be reckless." he called as he tried to clean himself.

Elizabeth felt every inch of her body hurt, and it is getting sore after the physical trauma she endured. "Come on!?" She shouted and scanned the room on the other side of the door. No matter what will happen, she would use her past experience to best of her abilities.

The path in there was like a large air ducts, leading somewhere. Once she heard the sound of the door open she ran and jumped down.

"This should take us down." Steven commented.

"Let's hope the lift is still working."

They walked around the small railing until they found the steps to the lift. Elizabeth pulled the handle and they felt a gentle shake, in less than a second the lift took them down to their destination.

There was two doors in the place, it wasn't clear to them where they needed to go. "I'll check the door over there. "Steven said and walked to the right side.

Elizabeth went for the far door, once her hand touched the handle the door opened. "Over here." She called and waited as Steven's steps got louder and louder.

"Jump down." he announced and didn't bother to go over the ladder, Elizabeth followed behind, over the door they reached the bilge pathway at last.

The screen over the machines had a red background and image of the whole ship, there is some spots had flickering red colors. "Attention! Engine trouble found. Report to the engine room immediately."

Elizabeth touched her husband shoulder and nodded at something, Steven saw behind the glass four creatures waiting for them. "Great!" she rolled her eyes.

"I'm going to use all the grenades I have." Steven assured her and took two out of his belt. While his back is against the door his hand held the handle, mentally prepared himself to the blow.

Elizabeth nodded, the grenade in her hand. Steven kicked the door open and throw the grenade at the creatures. After the shock wave took them out, she picked up the pace and throw the other one then Steven closed the door. The explosion has shock the ground beneath them, but they were safe this time.

The stragglers were shot up by Steven as Elizabeth focused on something else.

Once the creatures melted, they walked outside. They made their way through the bilge's pathway where they used every single bullet they have, "The engine room is over there hurry!" Their radios buzzed. They sprinted through the second door in the corridor.

The yellow lit room was empty, and deathly silent. Several quite sobs escaped her lips, she fall in her knees. "Where are you baby?"

The sound of his recorded voice still plays in her mind like a cruel punishment, an ugly image took over her vision.

Steven shock his head and breathed, elbows resting at the railing his teeth are visible. "No, we must stay positive. Maybe we are in the wrong section of the ship. Maybe someone is playing with our nerves." she said pulling herself together.

Gently he approached her and held unto her arms. "Lizzy!? We'll find him, I promise."

Elizabeth finally looked at him, she opened her mouth but no sound came out. She rested in his chest and closed her eyes, breathing in and out. Steven moved his hand over her hair. "Yes, we must stay positive."

The couple didn't notice the screen above them, written in a bolded text. **'Queen Semiramis.'**

 **Thank you for reading, more to come.**

 **Special thanks to my friend The95will.**


	15. Note, must read

Hello everybody, long time no see.

I did not abandon this story, I will update again soon. Right now I think I'll re-read everything I have so far and perhaps do some editing and changes here and there before I post a new chapter.

Thank you all who followed and Favorited my story.


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